Smile
by Pyjamas
Summary: Ryou is a loner at school. He has few friends and despises everyone else. Bakura, an incredibly hot sixth former, soon takes a keen interest in him. [Ryou x Bakura]
1. Prologue

**I'm off sick today, go me. So I figured I'd write something. This is just the prologue; I plan on writing many chapters. Ryou centric. Also, if you're not British, as I know most people on here aren't – I'm using the British schooling system and British clothes sizes. It's not hugely important; I just don't understand the American ones. I don't own Yugioh. Enjoy.**

SMILE

He paused at the open red gate, and stared at the swarms of people congregating around every bench and door. The faceless bastards. Every single last one of them, chattering away about all the trivial things – who fancied who, which drugs were the best, making plans for the weekend.

What, he wondered, would these cretins have in store for him today? Yesterday a jar of crane flies had been emptied into his bag before the first bell had rung. Some kiddie had thought she was clever for kicking a puddle at him, and when he got home he found numerous braids in his hair. It was so juvenile; he could not believe that these people were his age, more or less.

If he could have one wish in the whole world, it would be that he and his very select group of friends were the only students at this school. It was a good school; he would go as far as to say an incredibly good school. The teachers, unlike many, knew how to teach in a way that everybody understood. They didn't have favourites in their classes, so everyone felt equally treated, and they made the students look forward to classes. They were friendly and open; they treated the students more like their friends, and most of them were humorous enough to have him giggling like a girl when he was supposed to be being serious.

But it wasn't just the teachers; it was almost everything. The exam results got better every year, and there were always too many parents wanting to send their children there. There was a uniform, but the school did have its priorities sorted out; it wasn't like others who would suspend kids and prevent their education just because their top button wasn't done up, or their shirt wasn't tucked in. The food in the cafeteria wasn't even horrible; in fact, it was quite nice.

The only problem this school had was the pupils; the disgustingly huge amount of ignorant, conceited, self-centred, narrow-minded pupils who could really do with a kick in the balls or a baseball bat to the head.

What was worse, though, was that despite his utter detestation for the lot of them, he wasn't stupid, nor was he blind. He knew for a fact that, if the idiots actually applied themselves a bit, the majority of them would be doing so well. Yes, the teachers were good, but no amount of good teaching could make up for the laziness of the student.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly; it was cold, and he could see his breath in front of him. From his spot by the gate he peered around, and a girl caught his attention. She was really quite pretty. Her hair was long, straight and dark. She was skinny too; she looked to him no larger than a size 8. Her eyes were large and brown, and her skin was nearly perfectly white. She had a friendly smile, and straight, white teeth. He stared at her for a while; this was not, however, solely because she was pretty. He grew more disgusted by the second by the cigarette she held between her fingers, and the weed she almost certainly had in her pocket. It really angered him to see things like that. The girl could easily have become a model or something, but there she was smoking like a chimney. It would eventually dye her fingers and teeth, tar her lungs and make her smell absolutely vulgar. Her looks would have helped her to achieve in later life, but she was taking them for granted. If he was completely honest, that kind of thing pissed him off.

His gaze shifted back towards the building as the first bell rang, and all the people started moving towards the doors. The girl, to his disgust, put out her half finished cigarette and stuffed it into her inside pocket. The six and a half hours of school for today had begun, and so, with the reluctance of a five year old being taken to a dentist appointment, he started making his way towards his form room.

**How was that? I'd really like to know; last time I posted something I got no reviews at all, and it was very off-putting. Oh, something else before I forget – the function that lets me reply to reviews wasn't working before. I'll try to reply, but if I don't, that'll be why. Review please.**


	2. Party Boy

**Gosh, I churned this out much faster than I expected to. Ryou POV. Credit to TK for helping me when I got a bit stuck. I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

"Ryou! Think fast!"

I barely had time to register who had shouted at me before I was smacked in the face with something that, I presumed, had once upon a time been some kind of fruit. It was disgusting; I prided myself on managing to keep long hair without damaging it and never having it looking greasy. Seriously, those random goons you get all over the place that talk to everybody were often coming up to me and making an exclamation about how my hair was long but it didn't have split ends, or that it smelled nice, which would develop into a guessing game about which shampoo I used. I didn't even dye it; it was naturally white. Proper white too, not the awful off white colour that looks grey. My efforts this particular day, however, to have nice hair appeared to have been in vain as now not only was my hair covered in the obliterated skin of the 'fruit' and most of its contents, but so was my face and quite a lot of my shirt. I was only too thankful that I hadn't had my mouth open at the time of impact.

As soon as my brain had recovered from the shock and my face had screwed itself up, I could hear the majority of the form burst into laughter. I was scowling as I reached up to peel the solids from my face and hair and to attempt at scraping the juices from my skin. By now I had had enough of an opportunity to recognise the voice of my attacker as one of my friends, but even so this didn't stop me once again revising the reasons that I could not stand nearly everyone in the human race. It wasn't because they'd take every chance possible to assault me with various foods and implements; it was because afterwards they'd laugh about it. I mean, there I am, having done nothing at all to deserve it, but getting bruised, humiliated, pissed off and covered in God knows what all at once. It wasn't even funny. All it did was entertain the bastards for a few moments, and leave me angry for the rest of the day.

This, however, was an exception. Joey, the thrower of the 'fruit', was one of my friends, and I was prepared to make allowances for my friends. Not all the time though; for example, if Joey had deliberately set out to make another one of my friends a laughing stock, I would be making no allowances whatsoever. I didn't care about what anyone thought of me, but I was aware that my friends did; anybody who tried to make them feel bad, or self conscious, or whatever, would have me to answer to. Not the most welcoming of prospects.

After I had disposed of what I could of the 'fruit', I made a beeline for Joey and smacked him in the back of the head. The others I greeted with a smile before I sat down. Yugi was the first to greet me back, although it wasn't really in the most enjoyable manner.

"Ryou, have you done the homework?"

His voice betrayed the fact that he was in quite a panic, and this in turn told me that he had not done whatever homework he was talking about. Poor Yugi; I never did find out how he managed it. Never missed a day, always taking notes and there had not been a single class I'd been told of in which he didn't finish the work set. He was the classic 'teacher's pet' apart from one aspect - when it came to homework he was the most hopeless person in the world.

I, on the other hand, was usually quite good with homework. Keyword being usually. Yugi's panicked words had caused a quiet alarm bell to start ringing in my head, and I looked at him with a bit of confusion.

"Which homework would this be?"

"Maths. The straight line graphs and quadratic functions. The sheet."

There was a moment of silence, during which I simply sat with a blank look on my face trying to remember this particular piece of homework. Various prompts came from Malik who, being in the same maths set as Yugi and myself, knew which homework was being talked about. Clearly he hadn't done it either, but then again, he never did. It wasn't that he wasn't clever; quite the contrary in fact. He was the smartest person I knew. The problem with him was that he was just so lazy when it came to school. He never bothered with classwork or homework; it was once in a blue moon that he could hand in a piece of work that hadn't been copied. How he had managed to stay in the top set for everything throughout his entire school life was a mystery to me.

Either way, the prompts he was issuing me with eventually jogged my memory, and after fishing around in my bag I pulled out my maths book and threw it at Yugi. He gasped and said 'thank you!' at the same time, afterwards rushing towards his place at the back of the room to start copying. Malik didn't take long to follow, although he first decided that climbing over me was necessary to get his maths book from his bag. Which it wasn't; he could have easily gone around. That was another thing about Malik; he loved to do trivial things the hard or awkward way, just to annoy people.

With the two of them now occupied, it was mostly up to Joey and Tea to keep a conversation going. I wasn't the best speaker in the world. I could speak to my friends with ease, but although I could speak to my teachers and other peers if it was really necessary, I preferred not to. Tristan however, the last person in our group, didn't have a problem with speaking to anyone. He was just considerably quieter than Joey and Tea. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that Joey and Tea were just considerably louder than most people I knew, Tristan included.

Sort of as I had predicted, Tea started things off. "Oh, speaking of homework, have you done anything on the poster for RE, Tristan?"

"Not a lot, I've just printed off some pictures. I don't know how she can expect so much. Annulment is the most ridiculous topic for a poster, I swear to God. What topic did you get?"

"Sex before marriage. Much more interesting."

Tristan looked a little annoyed that Tea had got a better subject than him. I could understand his irritation, though; it must be damn near impossible to make a poster based on annulment. Annulment, of all things! There's not even a lot you can write about it, let alone put on a poster. He should have been at least a little bit grateful that he was getting to make a poster in the first place though. I, being in a different set to them, had a different teacher. My RE teacher was a prick, and wouldn't let us make posters if his life depended on it.

Tristan got over his annoyance enough to keep talking. "What stuff have you got so far?"

"Well," she ticked them off on her fingers as she went. "Sex before marriage can lead to one or both partners demanding sex-"

At this point, Joey interjected. "Tea demands sex from me."

He hadn't made any effort at all to say it so she wouldn't hear; she glared at him for a few moments before continuing. "It can also lead to selfish behaviour, as sex should not be used to satisfy sexual desires-"

He interrupted her again. "Tea uses me to satisfy her desires. She's so selfish."

She didn't even bother to glare, just took a deep breath before carrying on again. "Sex before marriage also encourages the spread of sexually transmitted diseases-"

"Tea has Chlamydia."

"For fuck's sake, Joey!" His third comment earned him a kick in the leg. Tea refused to speak another word, and sat with her arms folded facing the other way. She also had her nose stuck up in the air, indicating that she wasn't really angry. Tristan and Joey sniggered, and I gave way to a grin. What was a bit of harmless amusement between friends?

Tea's sulking posture and Tristan's laughter vanished with the sound of the second bell, and both of them reluctantly reached for their bags. They were in a different form to Yugi, Malik, Joey and myself, so when the 20 minutes of registration began it was to their own form room that they had to go. I had to go to my own seat by the window. Joey didn't move, probably because he couldn't be bothered. Yugi and Malik didn't move either, aside from Malik leaning back in his chair and tilting it onto two legs every now and then. He never was the most patient person, and I don't hesitate to say that he had the attention span of a gnat.

Because I sat by myself, I had time to think without interruptions, and I realised how greatly my mood had improved in the short space of time between being hit in the face and moving to sit in this seat. My friends did me the world of good, they really did. I'll admit that they each had their faults; Joey took jokes too far sometimes, and Tea talked way too much for her own good. Malik could be the biggest bastard in the world, Yugi tended to get a bit grumpy when people had different opinions to him and Tristan often talked like he was the only person in the world who had problems. Despite these things, they were the most fantastic friends I could have asked for, and as long as I had them I didn't want or need anyone else.

Everyone else, however, was the main problem with my life. People just got in the way of what I wanted to do. I had my whole life planned out – I'd go to school and learn, I'd take a bunch of exams, I'd go to university and get a bunch of qualifications, I'd get a good job with a six figure income, I'd get married and have a beautiful family, and I'd live happily every after. These were my plans, and they were being thwarted by everyone else. School wasn't going as smoothly as I'd planned because of patronising teachers and ridiculous associates. There was constant pressure about the results of the exams having to be good, which if anything was only going to make my performance worse. I didn't expect the university bit to go well either; I'd been told by numerous members of school staff that not only are universities tricky to get into, but once you're there absolutely nobody will give two shits about how well you do. And the family bit? From how I could see my life going, that might as well have been in my plans for a laugh. I'd never had a girlfriend; and to be honest I'd never really wanted one. Every girl I'd ever met either smoked or did drugs or got drunk often or had a terrible personality. No one was appealing to me, and if I kept feeling like that about every girl I met, I wasn't sure that anybody ever would.

Humanity just tended to piss me off like that.

Having gone over these thoughts, my mood was again as foul as ever when my form tutor came into the room late and started hurrying about with an assortment of papers and envelopes and files. I turned my head away and frowned in the window's direction. I just could not stand the woman. She was the most patronising, ignorant, laughable piece of shit I'd ever seen. She wasn't even a good teacher. Most of my school's teachers were pretty good, but this one wasn't. She had no idea what she was talking about most of the time, made unreasonable demands of her classes and could not make any decisions whatsoever without the guidance of the Head of Upper School. Like once (she taught the bottom English set) she gave her class five minutes to read four sides of A4. I felt quite bad for poor Joey, and I was so glad that she didn't teach me.

I decided to occupy myself with tapping my pen on the table; a pastime of mine that really got on her nerves. It was this time of the school day that I hated. Nothing was achieved, at all. She set us nothing to do, I could talk to no one due to my sitting alone and it wasn't like I had anything I could be catching up with because I'd done it all. It meant that all I could do was sit and involuntarily reflect on everything that angered me about society and the people I was surrounded by every day. To be honest, I found it rather tedious.

My gaze and frown were averted from the window to the door as I heard someone opening it. I didn't really care for who they were or what they wanted. I never did. It was just a pleasant distraction.

Three guys from the sixth form were standing in the doorway. I longed for the time when I would be able to be in the sixth form to hurry up; it would be wonderful to be able to have finished compulsory education, yet come into school of my own accord. I wouldn't have to wear the ridiculous uniform either. To be more precise about the guys, one was leaning against the doorframe eyeing our entire form like a lion would its prey. The second guy was with one hand holding the door open so it didn't crush the first guy, and with the other hand holding out an inch thick wad of paper towards my form tutor and trying to get her to take it. The third, as that dense woman had her back turned, was doing a 'party boy' around the room, stopping at various people to do the stupid dance at them specifically.

I was one of these unfortunate people. Having some bastard's arms flailing about my head and his groin propelled towards my face was a most unpleasant experience, and all I could do to receive it was look up at him briefly, scowl and turn back towards the window.

As he danced off to thrust himself at others, I couldn't help but think about how much he looked like me. I'd noticed before; it's impossible not to notice when someone looks like yourself, and he wasn't exactly a person you could miss. It was mostly the hair. His hair was white like mine and that's not exactly a common thing, although I'm pleased to be able to say that it was nowhere near as well kept. It stuck up and out all over the place; really, it was like he hadn't run a brush through it in a decade. People were often commenting on how much we looked like each other. I didn't know what he was like in personality as I'd never spoken to him, but from what I had observed he was nothing like me. We only had one common trait; neither of us cared about other people's opinions. It was easy to tell. If he cared, he'd at least brush his hair every now and again.

Aside from that, we appeared to be opposites. He was loud, I was quiet. He got on with anyone he wanted, whereas I had difficulty. He thought having fun was the most important thing in life. I thought differently. Without going into a novel of detail, he was the model example of the kind of person I absolutely detested.

I turned back to look at him. He had joined the other two again, and they seemed as if they were about to leave. A welcome idea to me. A distraction was good, but a bad distraction was worse than no distraction at all. The guy with the paper was standing there faffing for a minute before my form tutor shooed the three of them out. It was the first sensible thing I'd ever seen her do. Two of them walked straight off, but the guy who had been dancing, for one reason or another, felt the need to stop. He pressed as much of himself up against the glass door as he could. This was, perhaps, one of the most juvenile things I'd seen for a long time, until he decided that he also felt the need to lick the door repeatedly. This was then, without a doubt, the most juvenile thing I'd seen for a long time. The rest of the form, of course, erupted with laughter and giggles and "oh my God"s. I just couldn't believe anybody could be so disgusting as to lick a door. The only thing that consoled me was that he could have gone a step worse and licked the carpet.

My form tutor, again, had to shoo him away, only this time she tried a bit harder by opening the door and actually making a shooing motion with her hand. At least it worked this time and the last guy did leave. Gosh, how I hated people like that. They were so infantile and vulgar, just to amuse all these people they'd never spoken to. It was beginning to piss me off to such an obscene amount that I forced myself to stop thinking about it. I was, however, spared the chore of having to conjure up another thought when the bell for first lesson rang. The thought was there automatically; which lesson did I have? As I rooted through my bag once again for my timetable, I vaguely remembered that Yugi was in possession of my maths book. After brief thought and the discovery that I had Physics, I figured that I'd leave my maths book with him. He'd keep it safe, and I really couldn't care less where it was as long as it was returned before the maths lesson.

**Ah, that was fun to write. And now, I know almost exactly where I'm going to go with the next chapters. Reviews make me happy (and the reply function works again! Yay!)**


	3. Damn Those Eyes

**Hahaha, oh my gosh. I was talking about this fic the other day and about when to put this chapter up, and Steph thought I was talking about a Christmas tree. I was like, um, no Steph, it's October. Anyway. Credit to TK, Ibby, Chris and Sam for helping. I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

I was so angry that day. I didn't even have a proper reason to be; I just was. Every single thing that everybody did just made me madder and madder. It was that guy dancing at me that started it off. Then there were the little children in the corridors that insist on walking as slowly as is humanly possible, and the other little children that congregate in doorways or decide to tie up their shoelaces in the middle of a busy, narrow hallway. There were again the childish antics of my peers all day, and their refusing to make less noise than they were, which was quite probably enough to provide Europe with a year's supply of heating. There was the frustration of not understanding a question set. And I'm sure it's not difficult to understand the way I got annoyed at that one person you get who thinks they know everything and are completely up themselves. The suggestion that we all go out for a pizza that night was highly welcomed; I needed an opportunity to calm down, and this opportunity couldn't be obtained while I was at school or at home.

Joey had recommended the fast food place in the town, and of course we had all agreed without a second thought. We went there more often than anywhere else; it was mostly a matter of convenience though. Being October it was too cold to do anything outside, and the place was within walking distance of the school so we could just go straight away. If it had been summer, however, Malik and I would have both disagreed. I because I disliked fast food; it's fattening and tastes horrible. Malik because he was a vegetarian, and most of the food, if you could call it that, on the menu contained meat in one form or another. But either way, it was where we were going.

When we got there we could see that it wasn't exactly jam-packed, so it was easy to find a space large enough for all of us. Yugi and Tea, after hearing what we all wanted, went off to get the pizzas while the rest of us were left to chat. Joey leaned back in his seat and got the first word in; the idea of food seemed, for some reason, to make him more talkative than usual.

"Man, I'm so glad it's Thursday!"

Tristan folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what normal people say about Fridays?"

One of Joey's eyes, which had been shut, opened to look lazily at Tristan before shutting again. "Yeah, but tomorrow's Friday, and that means that tomorrow is the last day of school."

"What's that got to do with you being glad it's Thursday?"

"If it's Thursday, I can look forward to it being Friday tomorrow."

Malik's mocking glance in Tristan's direction and Tristan's scowl in return told me that I wasn't the only one who hadn't completely understood Joey's side of the argument.

"But," Joey continued, "my point was that I like coming here on Thursdays."

I was too curious not to ask. "Why only on Thursdays? You enjoy it every time we come here."

He turned his head to look at me before turning it back and linking his hands behind his head. "Not just on Thursdays, on other days too. It's just better on Thursdays. Oh, you don't understand."

Malik replied before I had a chance. "You're right. He doesn't understand, and neither do we." He nodded in Tristan's direction and crossed his legs underneath him. If I'd attempted that, I'd have fallen off my chair. "But please, allow me to change the subject to something Ryou might find a little more illogical."

This caused me to stretch out my legs, fold my arms and give him an inquiring look. He had a nasty habit of being right when he said things like that.

Moving so he could lean his elbows on the table he grinned. "People live in the ceiling of this place."

He had been right. I was about to snort when Tristan did it for me. "That's a stupid idea. The roof's flat so there'd be no room."

For a moment I was shocked that he'd made an argument that suggested, if the argument hadn't been true, that he would have believed it. What a preposterous concept; people living in the ceiling, honestly. I could never be sure whether Malik was serious, on drugs or just saying things like that to annoy me. He was trying to protest that there had been truth in his words when my attention was distracted to Joey, who had burst into laughter and was currently trying to get some words out. The laughing was making it very difficult for him so anything he tried to say was heard as gasps and noises. Tristan sniggered and Malik looked smug as the three of us waited for Joey to calm down enough to talk. After a while we were rewarded, although not with words I had entirely expected to hear.

"Oh…oh my God. That's so true."

I felt like I was surrounded by children. "You're fools. All three of you."

Malik gasped and looked at me with an astounded expression. Now I was positive he was doing it to wind me up. "But I speak the truth! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

I didn't remove the look of utter disbelief from my face, and I could practically see the cogs turning in his head trying to think of a way to convince me. He certainly wasn't giving up. "I do! Look…you see that? That's people!"

I turned around to see what he was pointing at, and saw a ceiling tile moving and wobbling about. I had to sigh. "That's nothing to do with people. It's just a draught because this place has been badly built and has holes in the roof."

He crossed his legs again. "No, that's one of the people who live up there going to the toilet."

"It's not people."

"Bloody is!"

"It's bloody not!"

"Well what's that then?!"

He was pointing to a stain on the table that looked like orange juice. "It's orange juice or something. What's your point?"

He grinned, and for a second looked positively manic. "That's not orange juice. You see that open ceiling tile? They piss out of that onto this table."

"Malik, that's disgusting."

I was pleased to hear Tea's voice. Not only because it would serve as a voice of reason to these morons, but because it meant that she and Yugi had returned with the pizzas. Bad quality pizza it may have been, but I was very hungry.

The two of them sat down, and three or four minutes of struggling to get the right pizzas to the right people ensued. Malik's was perhaps the easiest as he had nothing but extra cheese on his. Joey had a meat feast, Yugi had extra cheese and ham, Tea and Tristan both had pepperoni and I had pineapple and ham. Once we had all started to devour our food, two different conversations were begun. I, after brief thought, decided not to contribute to either; I was far more focused on getting some pizza in my belly. Being hungry wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world, so until I'd satisfied at least some of my hunger I would block out the rest of the world.

The pizza wasn't even all that nice. The cheese felt all stodgy, and the bottom of the box was damp with grease. It was considerably vile. But, I supposed, that was what we got for wanting to be cheap.

Eventually my hunger began to disappear, and I was able to eat slowly enough to avoid giving myself indigestion. It also gave me the opportunity to listen to the conversations going on around me. The more attention-grabbing of the two was between Joey and Malik:

"I so could!"

"You could not."

"I could. Other people can."

"You're not other people. I'll bet anything that you couldn't."

"Oh yeah? Well I'll bet you a slice of pizza that I can."

"You're on."

I watched Joey get up from his seat, a determined look on his face, and march up to the counter. Peering across at Malik I inquired as to what Joey thought he could do. He laughed and replied, "He reckons he can down vinegar."

I had to snicker. Joey really was a fool sometimes. I turned my attention to the conversation between Tea and Yugi instead, figuring that I'd know who won the bet by the amount of noise afterwards. This other conversation, I had to say, was infinitely more interesting, if slightly quieter.

"I hate being bi sometimes, I really do."

Looking down at the table, I frowned into my pizza. I felt bad for Yugi sometimes. We were the only ones who knew he was bi; if anyone else knew he'd likely have the shit kicked out of him. So when he began to fancy a guy, he was stuck because he couldn't say anything about it. Tea tried to console him.

"Try not to worry, Yugi. I mean, you two are good friends aren't you? Have you tried just talking to him about it? I'm sure he'd understand."

Yugi clawed at his scalp. "I can't say anything. How weird would that be? Think about it. What if he was homophobic?"

"Does he seem homophobic to you?"

"Well…no…"

"I didn't think so either. Look, he seems like a really nice guy; I can't see why it should change anything between you. Unless, of course, he feels the same way and the two of you end up going out."

"I wish."

Tea sighed. "It's not like you to be so pessimistic, especially about something like this."

My eavesdropping was disturbed by a choking fit. Upon turning around the first thing I noticed was the cup sideways on the table, along with a brown coloured liquid. Next I saw Joey bent double coughing his insides up, and Malik taking a piece of Joey's pizza and putting it in his own box. I smirked. Joey had indeed lost the bet. But he couldn't have expected to win, surely? My sadistic companion sat staring at Joey until he stopped choking and, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, leaned towards his face and muttered, "I win."

What had happened didn't seem to sink in to Joey properly until after a few moments of silence between the two of them. He then looked furious, and lunged at Malik.

"Malik! You bastard! Give me back my pizza!"

"Excuse me? I won the bet, therefore I won your pizza."

"I didn't think you'd take it!"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"You're a vegetarian! You don't eat meat feast pizzas!"

"Who said I was going to eat it?"

Joey stopped shouting, and a confused expression took over his face. "What do you want my pizza for if you're not going to eat it?"

Malik was looking very pleased with himself. "It's none of your business. It's my pizza now." With these words, the slice of Joey's pizza was dropped into a nearby bin. Joey himself, upon seeing this, immediately went completely ape and tried to feed the small amount of vinegar left in the cup to the other.

I let my attention stray back to Yugi and Tea, who were still discussing Yugi's love life.

"Yugi, no one else here speaks to him apart from you. Wouldn't it be a bit suspicious if one of us suddenly started asking him about you?"

He seemed to light up. I didn't like it when people lit up; it often meant bad things were going to happen. Especially if it was Malik. "Not if they weren't actually speaking to him. They could just speak to one of his friends!"

Tea appeared to be a bit exasperated. Yugi could be hard work sometimes. "None of us know his friends either."

"One of you could get to know them. I think…Ryou would be best. At least he'd have an excuse."

My eyes shot in Yugi's direction. What was he trying to do? "I beg your pardon?"

He smiled, and the first part of his reply was directed at Tea. "He could get to know Bakura, because they look like each other, don't they?"

By this point I was very suspicious. If he was thinking that I was going to spend time with some sixth form bastard who looks like me and pisses me off, he had quite another thing coming. He turned to me with the most innocent look you'd ever seen. "Ryou, could you do me a-"

"No."

The innocent look rapidly turned into the whole puppy dog eyes thing. He always did that to get what he wanted because everybody found it so hard to refuse, myself included. "Please? C'mon, it won't be for long. I just need to know how Yami feels about me, and I can't really go up to him and ask him. But if you were friends with one of his friends who knew, then they might tell you. Besides, you two look so alike, it's creepy. I think it's strange that you haven't spoken to each other yet."

I raised an eyebrow, but I could feel myself giving in already. It wouldn't work if it was anyone else, but Yugi just had those damn eyes. "Looking alike is no excuse for an acquaintance."

"Please Ryou? For me?"

He grinned, and I sighed. It didn't appear that I had much choice in the matter, so it was in his best interests to buy me a very large cookie as a thank you present.

**There we are. I'm off now, and I won't be back until Sunday night. You know what would be a nice thing to come back to? Lots of reviews in my inbox.**


	4. Ice

**I was very happy when I came back on Sunday, so thank you everybody. I must say also, that I hope you appreciate me doing this chapter now, because I should be doing an essay that's due tomorrow. That's how much I love you. And today Chris and I have been together for nine months. Good, eh? I don't own Yugioh, credit to TK for a few choice words.**

SMILE

I woke up to the most ferocious banging I'd ever heard. Pissed off, I covered my head with one of my pillows. Friday never had been my favourite day of the week. Everybody was always going on about how Fridays were so good, but they really weren't. All that happened on a Friday was you could be happy about not having to go to school the next day. And not even everybody could do that; what about those kids that went to school on Saturdays? They were stuck with the knowledge that they were the only ones having to go to school the next day, and that everybody else would be out drinking themselves to death and having a good time. This, I imagined, would make Friday a terrible day.

I spared a glance at my clock and, realizing that it was only four in the afternoon, grunted and returned to the safety of my pillow. Some people really had no decency. I had been trying to get some much needed sleep, and succeeding in getting it. I was, however, not done with my rest. I had planned to sleep until at least half five, which was when everybody would be far too busy discussing their pathetic lives over the internet to be bothered with me or where I'd been all day. But no, it was not to be. The banging persisted, and I squeezed my eyes shut in a really quite hopeless attempt to block it out or forget it was happening. Either would have suited me perfectly, but neither came. It was just continual noise and it was beginning to give me a headache.

Thoroughly annoyed, I threw off my pillow and my duvet and forced myself to get up. I had always thought it horrible when one had to get up before it was absolutely necessary. School, for example, insisted that I get up at six in the morning. Six! Of all the ungodly hours, six was the worst, both in winter and in summer. In winter, like now, it was too cold to want to get up, and too dark to consider it morning enough to be awake. In summer, the sun was already high in the sky by five and was shining in through my curtains with an unbelievable brightness, waking me up at least an hour before I would have liked. Either way I lost out. Today was supposed to be an exception as I had decided against going to school, but no. Someone was going out of their way to make me mad, and they were doing a very good job of it.

As I struggled and stomped my angry way out of my room and towards the stairs, I wondered who could be stupid enough to disturb me. People who didn't know me wouldn't bother, and my friends knew that if I wasn't at school I'd sleep the day away. A salesman, perhaps? But salesmen didn't usually knock continually and rhythmically, they'd knock once or twice then go away when no one answered. When I really thought about it, it must have been someone from school. The way they were knocking said that they _knew_ I was in. Actually, it also said that they considered it perfectly acceptable to be rude and loud around me when I was asleep, so it really had to be one of my friends. Joey? He wouldn't care how loud he was as long as he got me to the door, although he didn't really have much reason to be here. Malik was the second name that came to my mind; same concept as Joey, except he had even less of a reason to be here. It might have been Yugi come to confront me about why I didn't come in and talk to that sixth former, but it wasn't really in his nature to knock and knock and knock until the cows came home; he wasn't so impatient. As for Tea and Tristan, neither of them had reason to be here and I could see neither of them knocking so incessantly. Who the hell was it?

Mumbling and grumbling all the way, I went downstairs and to the front door. Upon its opening, Malik nearly fell inside my house. That bastard. Of all of my friends, he was the one that would have, without a doubt, known I was asleep. He had called round multiple times before after I had had the day off school, and every single time I had been asleep. Also, he had been informed soon after we became friends that that was how I spent my days off. He must've done it on purpose.

He was about to greet me when I shut the door on him. How dare he disturb me then expect me to act all fine and dandy? I was sleepy, and angry. The knocking started up again almost as soon as the door had been closed, and I sighed. There was no getting rid of him now he knew he had succeeded in waking me up. I leaned against the wall and rubbed my hands over my face in an effort to make myself at least slightly more alert, and opened the door again. Before I had the opportunity to do anything, Malik invited himself in and walked past me to the living room, seating himself in the middle of the sofa.

"You're incredibly rude to your visitors, you know. I came here in good faith, and that's how you repay me? I expected better, I really did. Imagine if it had been Shakespeare at the door, and you treated him like that. Gosh, there'd be another tragic play in the world, based on your lack of manners, complete with murders and backstabbing and impoliteness."

All I could do was glare at him before turning and closing the door. I didn't know what to be more annoyed at; his waking me up, or his inviting himself into my house only to start offending me.

"Nice PJs, by the way," he continued, nodding towards my chequered trousers. "I used to have some like that, but then I got too tall for them and had to throw them away. It was well sad. Speaking of which, why don't you wear a shirt to sleep? It's winter and it's freezing."

Walking into the living room I observed and raised an eyebrow at Malik's hoodie, jeans and boots after glancing out of the window to see sunshine. I had long since learned never to judge the outside temperature by Malik's choice of clothing. "Well," I replied, "not all of us consider nineteen degrees Celsius to be the temperature at which water freezes. You're just too goddamn skinny, so everything's cold to you."

It was true as well. Malik was the skinniest person I had ever laid eyes on. He had a hard time finding clothes that fit him. Guy's clothes were impossible to find, and because he was something ridiculous like a size 4 in girls sizes it was near impossible to find them too. His apparel consisted mostly of XS tops and girls size 6 jeans with belts. It was stupid.

He stuck his tongue out at me, and after a moment of silence said, "Aren't you going to offer me a drink or anything? You're a rubbish host, Ryou."

I bit my lip to stop myself retorting and followed the living room through to the kitchen. That guy really knew how to wind me up; I could hear him tittering to himself. I took two cans of coke out of the fridge and through one through, hard, towards Malik. It hit him on the shoulder, and he yelled with a mixture of surprise and pain; not really where I had most wanted it to hit him, but it would do. And at least then his coke was shaken up so it would explode if he tried to open it.

His muttered reply to this assault was a bitter sounding, "Clit face." I ignored him and sat in an armchair in the corner of the room.

"So," I started, curious to know what he had thought important enough to disturb my sleep with, "to what do I owe this infinite pleasure?"

He smirked and, after having a go at opening his can and hearing a hiss come from it, decided to honour me with a reply. "Just thought I'd come tell you what you'd missed out on by deciding to sleep today away."

"And what, pray tell, did I miss out on? Anything spectacularly interesting?"

He shrugged, and turned most of his attention back to his can. "Not really. Discussion about moles in Chemistry, Tea ranting in Spanish, and a bunch of sixth formers attaching themselves to us."

I looked at him while drinking, and after putting the can down replied, "What do you mean, 'attached'?"

"It's Yugi's fault." He continued to struggle with his can. "Him and that tall bloke who has a bondage obsession were all soppy and shit. It was like 'get a room'. But because this bloke won't leave Yugi's side, his friends have come with him. No doubt they'll all be there on Monday."

I laughed. "Oh yeah, that's right. I was meant to be talking to one of his friends, but by the sounds of this it doesn't seem like I need to."

Malik paused in his fight with his drink and raised his eyebrows at me in a look that said 'you must be joking'. "I wouldn't be so sure. Yugi was getting his knickers in a right twist because you weren't there today. Seriously, you never heard so much rubbish in your life. It was like his entire life depended on you getting information from the tall bloke's friend."

I shook my head in amusement, and drank some more coke. "I'm sure I'll be able to get out of it if they're as all over each other as you say they are. Besides, I know nothing about this guy. I don't even know his name. How the hell can I be expected to get such information of out him if we know nothing about each other?"

Malik finally got his can open, and grinned at me. "Oh, I'm positive that Yugi will make sure that you both know each other inside out before you've said a single word to each other. You're aware of how much he likes to interfere with things."

"Painfully aware."

We finished our cans in a comfortable silence. That was the thing with Malik; he could annoy me as much as he chose, and then I could forget about it without a second thought. I wasn't sure how he managed it. If anyone else had gone to the same measures as him to get me out of bed, I'd have been in the biggest mood for the rest of the day. But Malik just made me forget about everything. I didn't know whether I should consider it a fault of his, or a virtue.

"You wanna go into town for a bit? We can throw stones at some children."

I agreed. I did of course first have to change; I was not going to go out in the middle of October wearing nothing but a pair of pyjama bottoms. And I was glad I made that choice, because for once Malik was fairly accurate with his judgement of the temperature. It may have looked sunny when I glanced, but once we had walked the short distance from my house to the town I was regretting having not picked up a hoodie.

"Where shall we go? What shall we do?" Came Malik's sing-song voice.

"I don't care where we go or what we do as long as it's inside. It's a little chilly out here."

He snickered. "Told you so."

"Shut your face."

A few moments of deliberation, shouting contests and sulking ended with the decision that we were to go and sit in the cinema. Its lobby was huge so no one cared if you were just lurking there, and it was the warmest place you could hope for in the winter. The only reason Malik agreed with the suggestion of the cinema was because he could buy ice cream there. He was a maniac, he really was. He'd come out wearing twenty four layers and complaining of the cold, then the minute we went out he'd go in search of ice cream or something equally silly, like a milkshake or a freeze pop. I didn't understand it in the slightest.

Upon arriving at the cinema I immediately went to sit on the floor by the wall while Malik made a beeline for the sweets counter. It wasn't that busy. I supposed that most people tend to go to the cinema on Saturdays, or at least most kids I'd heard of did. They only ever want on Fridays if there was going to be something really awesome out, and they were that desperate to see it. Fortunately, there had been no such amazing film for quite some time. The only people I could see from my spot on the floor, aside from Malik filling his arms with cartons of ice cream, were three kids looking no older than year eight sitting on a bench and a teenage couple standing and looking at the films that were on. At least there was no one I knew who might come and try to have a conversation with us.

I watched Malik pay for his ice cream, and then he made his way towards me with a grin plastered on his face. He really loved ice cream more than anything. I reckoned that if I had tried to take any of his ice cream away, he would have tried to kill me. Or maim me at the very least. I couldn't quite see why he got so uptight about it though; he was carrying a minimum of eight cartons. They weren't huge cartons, I granted him, but I couldn't eat them more than two at a time. I'd tried before, and I didn't see how he managed it without being sick all over the place. He fell down beside me on the floor and rapidly took the lid off the first carton. I looked at him with disgust as he started scraping the ice cream out with his mouth instead of using a spoon.

"What flavour's that?"

He pulled the carton away from his mouth and read the label. "Raspberries and cream."

"Malik," I began, not really interested in the answer he gave me, "for Christ's sake, use a spoon. You look appalling with ice cream covering your face."

He gave me a look to tell me that I was ruining his life before wiping half of the ice cream from his face with his sleeve and leaving the rest on his face. He did however, much to my satisfaction, start using the spoon he had.

"Tea's right when she says you're disgusting, you know."

"Shut up you fag," he replied with his mouth full of ice cream. "You're hardly in a position to call me disgusting."

"Oh? How come?"

"Because you touch yourself at night."

I rolled my eyes and decided that it was not worth bothering to reply. He was far to absorbed in his ice cream to care whether I replied or not, and no matter what I said if I did, his answer would be just as stupid as the previous one.

A film must have finished a few moments prior, as people started to pour out of the corridor with the screens in it. I watched them with a vague interest. Perhaps one of them would get a fatal nosebleed or something. It had always entertained me when people got nosebleeds; there was one guy in my form that got nosebleeds all the time. I remembered there once being four in one day. What a day that was. Endless laughs at his expense.

I longed to continue my reminiscing on various people and their nosebleeds, but it was cut short as I saw a horribly familiar and distinct looking haircut among the people leaving the cinema. On closer inspection I noticed a second, considerably taller guy with a similar haircut, a third guy with hair that looked suspiciously like mine and heard the unmistakeable voice of the girl beside them.

I was going to be in trouble if they saw me. One would scold me for skipping school, one would make me feel guilty for skipping school, one would glare at me for upsetting his friend and the other would just make me angry. I wasn't really in the mood for any of it; I had just wanted to go out, get rid of Malik, go home and go back to sleep. There would be no chance of that happening if they noticed me.

"Isn't that Yugi? Yugi, over here!"

I gave Malik a threatening look as he waved them over, but he just grinned and I gave up when I realised it would have no effect. He was doing it deliberately, just to annoy me. What a tosser. I made a note to get rid of as much of his ice cream as I could at the first opportunity I got.

Tea, Yugi and the two sixth formers arrived and stood in front of us, and as I had expected, the first thing I got was a scolding. "And why weren't you at school today, hm? I didn't have anyone to work with in Spanish because you weren't there. God, you're so lazy."

She wasn't being completely serious; I comforted myself with the thought that she was probably making me look bad to save Yugi the bother of doing it in front of his one true love. The tall sixth former in question, also as expected, was glaring at me. Clearly he wasn't too happy with me. I didn't care much for him, though. The only reason I cared for him enough not to blank his existence was because Yugi would have been in a strop with me if I had done that.

Yugi, certainly not as I had expected, didn't say a word to me. I had foreseen him pulling me aside and telling me off for not being there to get acquainted with the sixth former, of whose name I still had no idea. Instead he pulled his love interest away to one side, and they spoke in hushed voices. I could then see what Malik had meant earlier that day; it was obvious, even only by the way they were looking at each other, that the sixth former felt just as strongly towards Yugi as Yugi felt towards him. My hopes for getting out of the favour I had promised Yugi were then destroyed as I noticed that, again as Malik had told me, Yugi was completely blind to it. I would have no choice but to go through with my promise; Yugi wasn't one to believe everything his head told him, he often had to be shown things to believe them.

He stopped speaking to the tall guy for a moment to beckon Tea, who went over to them. Malik, being the nosy bastard he was, got up to join them and see what the fuss was about. This left me with the white haired sixth former, and I averted my eyes to the floor. I knew that if I so much as looked at him I'd get pissed off, because that kind of person just annoyed me that much. I could see his feet pacing, and had to fight the urge to hit him and tell him to get out of my line of vision.

I looked up just as Tea leaned back from the group and peered at me. Those bastards. They were conspiring against me. They had left me with this prat on purpose, and they were going to continue their own little conversation until one of us had broken the ice. I didn't think they realised that he was exactly the kind of person I never wanted to have any connection with.

I was considering getting up to leave when he sat down beside me and started tapping his fingers on his knees. Before he did that, I had no idea that such a small, insignificant action could wind me up the way it did. I believed that it was just that guy on his own that winded me up, actually. Everything he had done so far in my presence had irritated me. The way he looked made me mad and, if white wasn't such an unusual colour, I would have died my hair just so that people would stop making comparisons between the two of us. I hated seeing him, I hated being near him, and I certainly would have had no intention of ever speaking to him if I hadn't said to Yugi that I would. I couldn't believe I had said that. Had somebody hidden drugs in my pizza? I frowned as I realised that that wasn't as unlikely as I would have liked to think, although as far as I was aware none of my friends would have had drugs on them, so I should have been safe. But if it wasn't drugs, then what on earth had compelled me to say yes to such a favour? Whatever it was, it was something that I wished had never existed.

The guy turned his head to look at me, and because it was making me angry to just sit there ignoring him, I looked back at him expectantly. If he was going to say anything, it would be better if he said it then instead of taking his time about it. I couldn't stand it when people did things at a really slow pace, especially if it was talking or walking in front of me.

The guy, still looking at me, let his breath out and said the worst possible thing he could have said in this situation: "So…do you like anal?"

Of course, if he had been trying to get me to loathe him for all eternity then he would have succeeded in his purpose more than he could ever have hoped for. Somehow though, I don't think that had been the case. He was Yugi's love interest's friend, so he was probably trying to get on with his friend's love interest's friend. He had failed. His effort at being humorous in order to make me think he was an alright chap had not worked in the slightest and now, if possible, I thought him even more unbearable than I did before.

The ice had, however, been broken. Much to my distaste, the others started making their way back in our direction, and all hope I had had of escape were lost. I cursed myself for not taking the opportunity to leave when I could; there was no way in hell Yugi would let me ignore the acquaintance now it had been made. Eyeing Malik's ignored pots of unopened ice cream, I decided to myself that the least I could do to repay him for attracting Yugi's attention was to discard every single carton in any manner that would piss him off. For the first time, I really appreciated the effort the cinema made by supplying the lobby with bins.

**There we go, I hope that was ok. Reviews make me happy. **


	5. Sod It

**Sorry this took me so long, I've been busy and I had a bit of writer's block. Mock GCSEs in two weeks and all. Credit to TK. I don't own Yugioh. Enjoy.**

SMILE

I did indeed spend the rest of that outing in the biggest strop to ever exist. I sincerely regretted accepting the favour that Yugi had asked of me, and hoped with everything I had that by a stroke of luck I would go into a coma for the next month or so. At least then I would be able to get away with not saying any more to the nauseating sixth form ponce without Yugi getting all rat-arsed with me. The guy really was the biggest annoyance on the face of the earth. I had decided, after finally managing to escape the bastards and go home, that I really hated him. He pissed me off more than anyone else had in my whole life, excluding Malik. After he had broken the ice between us in his marvellously unique way and the others had rejoined us, he marched over to a group of chavs standing by the lift. We were too far away to hear what was being said, but we could see his arms were draped around the shoulders of two of them. After a few moments one of them seemed to lash out at him, missed, and proceeded to curse at him in a string of swear words. He made his way back to us laughing, and was then hit in the back of the head by a half full can of ginger beer. This made me grin a little; at least he was being hurt a little.

The dull pranks continued all the way through the town. In one incident he took off his shirt, lay on the pavement and started rubbing his nipples, moaning excessively loudly. Passers-by could do nothing but stare and look dumbfounded, while the group I was unfortunately with made a mixture of laughs and giggles and hysterics. I simply shook my head; it was embarrassing to think that I was being associated with such an idiot. Another incident found the tall guy being an object of humiliation as the pillock jumped onto his back, wrapped his arms and legs around him and humped him until they both collapsed onto the floor, where the humping continued. Everybody except me laughed, and nobody made any effort to help them up. There was no relenting on the white haired guy's behalf, and there was no attempt to move or escape on the tall guy's behalf. It made me wrinkle up my nose and wish I were somewhere else.

The only thing that was achieved throughout that entire day was my learning of the two sixth former's names; the tall guy with the bondage obsession that Yugi fancied was called Yami, and the tosser who stole my haircut was called Bakura.

Naturally, I took the first opportunity that arose to feign fatigue and make my way back home. Once I was inside my front door it was locked and bolted, and the curtains were pulled shut. There had been few times when I had been so pleased to be in the safety of my house, away from the stupid gits and prying bastards of the outside world. I had also left the heating on while I had been out, so the warmth of the house was insanely welcoming compared to the freezing high street. Needless to say, I picked up immediately where I left off; I went straight upstairs, changed into my chequered pyjama bottoms and curled up in my bed, making sure that I was completely covered by my duvet apart from my face before I fell asleep.

When I woke up I was thoroughly disappointed with myself for allowing it to be so early. It was still relatively dark outside, and I never woke up while it was still dark. Grumpy as this made me, I knew that there was no way possible for me to get back to sleep So, I headed straight downstairs to the fridge. Orange juice was infinitely preferable to wake up to than a stupid bastard trying to knock my door down. The best drink in the world, it was; orange, healthy and downright lush. Subsequently, leaning against the kitchen counter in my chequered pyjama pants with my glass of orange juice in my hand, I wondered what I should do that day. I turned to peer out the window; it didn't look too cold. Perhaps I would go for a walk, to clear my head. Upon finishing my drink it was decided that that was what I would do. I had quite a bit I needed to think about.

After showering and changing, I went out and started walking. The first thing I thought about was, surprise, surprise, Yugi and what he had asked of me. I had repeated multiple times, both to myself and to various others, how much I regretted agreeing to help. Bakura was a plank. I was not a plank. I just could not get on with people like him. I could see myself lashing out if a conversation between the two of us was ever attempted properly. Even if he didn't annoy the hell out of me, as far as I knew we had nothing on common, so if we did start talking the dialogue would quickly die. We'd just have nothing to talk about. He liked black metal, I liked punk. He played drums, I played console games. He apparently liked anal, whereas I most certainly did not. And his hair was in constant need of a wash. We were too different for me to ever see us managing to get along.

If I was perfectly honest with myself, I could not think of any reasons at all for Yugi victimising me. He knew full well that I wasn't a people person. He was also aware of my disdain for sixth formers in particular. It wasn't like they'd done anything wrong, just the majority of them pissed me off. Especially the paedophile ones, who preferred to hang around with year sevens and year eights then with people their own age. That was a good six year age gap. I, as a sixteen year old, could think of better things to do with my time than sit around with a bunch of ten year old girls talking about boys. I just didn't understand the appeal of such immature company. But, my point being, Yugi knew all this, and he still picked me. Why on earth did he do it? He could have asked Tea. She had some weird thing for older guys, and they all seemed drawn to her; I assumed it was because they didn't actually know her very well. Even so, she'd have done a far better job at this task than me. She'd have lured Bakura in, gained his trust, learned his best friend's secrets and then blurted them all out to Yugi. It was flawless, and would've worked like a charm. But no. Clearly the cream of the crop had been the socially awkward guy whose only similarity to the sixth former was his hair colour. It was ridiculous, it really was.

I walked on for a while, not really paying attention to where I was going. I was far more wrapped up in feeling annoyed at myself for waking up so early, angry with Yugi for making me do something which extended beyond my capabilities, pissed off at the sixth formers for existing and being the reason for this whole mess, and cold because once again I had wrongly estimated the temperature. I had the most terrible memory; I needed to write reminders for myself for the simplest things. For example: wear a jacket in winter. Throw away mouldy food. Draw the curtains if you're going to get changed at night with the light on. I exhaled heavily. I had once been getting changed in my room. It was night, and the light was on, and the curtains weren't drawn. I'd thought nothing of it at first. However, once I had stripped down to my boxers, I happened to glance out of the window. I was met with the sight of the old guy who lived opposite me staring at me with his hand down his pants. Needless to say, I was none too happy about that; I promptly drew the curtains and finished changing quickly. I then made my way downstairs and outside, intent on making my feelings known by the unmistakable method of throwing a rock through the old man's window. He wasn't too happy about that, either.

Becoming aware of a lot of trees to my right, I stopped moving and looked around. I had walked myself to the local park. The very empty local park, I couldn't fail to observe. Then again, I supposed that it was very early. People with even half a sane mind shouldn't have been awake at such an ungodly hour, including me; I should've been at home, asleep and warm under a huge duvet. Instead I was out and about. It was incredibly stupid of me to not even attempt to fall back to sleep. I sighed. Whatever I thought about it, I couldn't change the fact that I was now awake and up properly. I headed towards the gate to the park. I really didn't have anywhere better to go. Besides which, I loved being outside in the early mornings of the winter. It was just a pain in the arse having to get up so early to enjoy them.

I wandered aimlessly around the park for a bit before stopping to lean with my side against a cold tree. This park was so nice, especially in winter. No view could compare to frost around the edges of dried, red and brown leaves first thing in the morning, or grass which was shiny and sparkly with dew, covered with a light mist to give everything a surreal aura. Nobody was around, spare one woman pushing a pram along the path a good distance away from me, so the area felt tranquil and calm. The sun hadn't come up yet, which meant that the park still looked kind of gloomy. This was good. When the sun would eventually come up, it would be bright and intrusive. The mist would be rid of, the grass would be free of dew and the frost would disappear in an instant. The leaves wouldn't make that satisfying crunching sound when I trod on them, and there wouldn't be any wet grass left to soak the ends of my jeans and make my boots shiny, probably trying to get into my socks so I would get ill. I didn't really care about getting ill; a cold could easily be cured within a few days if you kept warm and took medicine. I just enjoyed the atmosphere here at this time, and wasn't around to enjoy it very often seeing as I didn't usually get up until mid-afternoon. It was to be revelled in; I inhaled deeply and blew the air out through my mouth. It was nice to be able to see my breath in front of me. I closed my eyes and took an even deeper breath.

This breath, however, was let out with a startled exclamation as someone slapped me on the arse. One of my hands went straight to my bum and during the moment of shock, in which I was unable to move, I wondered who the hell had had the nerve to do that. Pricks who knew me would know the consequences of such an action, pricks who didn't know me wouldn't bother. It confused me for the split second, after which I decided that I could easily turn around and see who the culprit was. I also decided that I wouldn't wait to see who it was before dishing out the punishment; whoever it was deserved it. As soon as my surprise had turned to anger, which didn't take very long, I can assure you, the hand that wasn't on my arse turned into a fist and was swung round in the assumed direction of the target's face.

The target was more or less met. I was awfully pleased about it too, especially after I saw the white hair adorning the offender's head. All the pain in my knuckles from the violent blow instantly became worth it. I even allowed a malicious grin to spread across my face when I saw the sheer amount of pain he was in, as well as the astonishment and displeasure. I had hit him square in the jaw, and I hoped with everything I had that it would leave a bruise. I enjoyed inflicting bruises in visible places on people who pissed me off.

He was looking up me from his sideways slouched over position, his hand clutching his jaw. At first, his expression was priceless; a mixture of confusion, shock and anger. It then turned to just confusion, and then to just anger. For a second he looked as if he might hit me back, then seemed to change his mind and settled for standing up straight with his arms by his sides, glaring at me. He was very tall when he stood up straight, and I'm sure that to others he would have seemed very intimidating. I glared back.

"…That was a bit uncalled for, wasn't it?"

If I had been one of those people who had absolutely no self control whatsoever, my mouth would have dropped open. Uncalled for? That was as uncalled for as World War Two! I managed, however, to keep my cool.

"Not in the slightest."

He folded his arms. "You know it was. If you apologise now, I might forgive you."

I raised an eyebrow. This guy was so up his own arse, it was almost making me want to kill myself. I turned so my back was to him and leaned against the tree again. "To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less whether you forgive me or not."

He exaggerated a frown. "What's your problem?"

"My problem?" My head turned back to face him.

"Yes. Your problem."

Should I just tell him that I hated him? Or would that upset Yugi too much? I paused. "I don't have a problem."

He laughed at me, which made me angrier. "My arsehole, you don't. I hardly know you, but you bite my head off every time I try to make conversation!"

I didn't reply. I wanted to so much, but I knew I would just end up getting madder and messing Yugi's plans up.

"Seriously. I don't know what the matter is with you. I'm only trying to be nice."

I still didn't reply. Perhaps I should consider giving him a chance?

"…and get laid."

That moment was the moment my mind was made up. Sod Yugi. I turned around completely. "Look. Let me be frank."

"As long as you let me be Colin."

My hand curled into a fist again, but I restrained myself. "I don't like you. At all. You piss me off, you're self-centred, you're loud and you're obnoxious. You're juvenile and immature, and you're conceited and narcissistic. Your existence makes me want to be violently and copiously sick, and your imbecilic attitudes are so embarrassing I think you gave me a hernia."

He looked utterly unimpressed. I continued.

"And you need a hair wash. However. I know I am going to regret saying this, before I say it. I'll regret it with every fibre of my being. But, I'm willing to put up with you. I'm stuck in a situation where I have no choice but to be around you."

"If that's all you think of me, I'm not so sure I want to be around you."

Those words were music to my ears. However, like most joys, it was short lived. He looked at the floor and continued.

"But, like you, I have no choice either."

I looked at the floor also. I really had seen a small glimmer of hope for a second. I had thought that perhaps he'd stop trying to talk to me, then Yugi would have no way of getting me to talk to him, so I'd get out of it and Yugi would sort himself out and everyone would live happily ever after. I should have known that that's never the case. I felt his arm drop around my shoulder, and the reality came back.

"It looks like we're stuck together, doesn't it? Bestest buddy, ol' pal."

It was a cold, early, winter morning, and it was already one of the worst days of my life.

**I hiccupped most of my way through that. I hope it was ok. I've already started the next chapter, but it won't be up for a couple of weeks because of my mocks, and I'm going on holiday on Monday. Just thought I'd say so in advance. Review please!**


	6. Revolution

**Mocks are nearly over, only two more to go! And it's December! Christmas! Woo! I love Christmas. I might write a Christmas fic. Anyway, credit to Steph (sorry TK, but I don't remember you helping xD). I don't own Yugioh. Or Stalin. Or Genghis Khan. Or Ramones.**

SMILE

I stormed into my form room on Monday morning, still in the rage from Saturday. I paid no attention to the way Joey threw his arms in the air at my grumpy entrance, or the greeting Tea shouted at me in her high pitched voice. All I could focus on was directing an angry glare in Yugi's direction as I sat in the spare chair beside Malik.

"I really, really hope you appreciate what I'm doing for you."

His face took on a mixed expression of surprise and disbelief. "What?"

"This bloke of yours." I folded my arms across my chest and stretched my legs out in front of me. "Why can't you just talk to him yourself instead of having me get all chummy with his friend?"

He put those stupid eyes on again. "Because it just makes everything easier. You know how I mess things like this up."

I snorted. "That's the most ludicrous claim I've ever heard. You of all people should realise that I'll do the worst job of this out of anybody here. I'm sure Tea would have been willing to do it. And she'd be far better at it."

"Oh, you'll do fine," he waved his hand in my direction. "Besides, you've already started, and you're doing ok so far, aren't you?"

What on earth was he thinking? "…I changed my mind. _That's_ the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. I can't stand the guy. Do you know what he did on Saturday?"

"What?"

"I woke up early and went out to the park. He thought he'd sneak up behind me and slap me on the arse."

As much as it pained me to say it, it had to be done. There was no other way that Yugi would listen to me; once his mind was set on something, very little could change it except the chance that it would hurt his friends. My embarrassing confession, however, resulted only in Malik leaning toward me and slapping me around the face.

I could do nothing but clap my hand over my cheek and make the following exclamation:

"What the fuck was that in aid of?!"

He simply grinned and replied "Slappy slappy!" in a squeaky voice.

"Either way," my attention was turned back to Yugi, "you're doing fine as it is. Please carry on for me? It doesn't have to be for long; just long enough to find out whether Yami likes me or not."

"Why can't you ask him?"

"Because I don't know him."

"Neither do I!"

Gosh. It was so exasperating trying to argue with Yugi. He was so stubborn when he wanted something badly enough, he'd often use the same arguments twice even if they'd already failed before. I signed and ran a hand back through my hair.

"The question is, Yugi, how long is long enough? He might not tell me at all, even if I did manage to get on his good side. That'd make this entire plot useless, and then I'd be stuck with him too, which I really don't want."

"Stop being so negative. He likes you, why can't you like him? It's not like he's done anything to you."

"I know." I sighed. For once, I wanted to win an argument with Yugi. I had always lost before due to his stubbornness, and I had ended up getting sick of hearing the same things over and over. I knew I was close to losing again. But this time, I didn't care how much he repeated himself. He could talk and argue and make eyes until he was blue in the face, and it wouldn't change the way I saw the situation.

"Please, Ryou? Please?"

I opened my mouth to answer, and was interrupted by a sort of roaring sound coming through the door behind me. Raising an eyebrow, I turned around and to my horror, the roar was coming out of the mouths of three sixth formers entering the room. Most people in the room stared at them. A couple laughed, and a few girls whispered to each other. I turned back and held my head in my hands, while Yugi looked at me with a pleading expression. It seemed that there was nothing I could do to have things my way, so I decided that I had no choice but to endure it and ensure that it lasted for as little time as was humanly possible.

Not a moment after this decision was made did someone behind me take hold of my hair and hold it up and out all over the place, before messing it all up. After the incident on Saturday, it wasn't difficult to realise who it was. I turned my head, slowly as to not pull my hair any more, and glared at him. Although, I had to raise an eyebrow once more as I saw that he was standing as far away as possible while still being able to reach my hair. When he saw my questioning look, he replied, "You can't reach to hit me from there."

I observed the well-developed bruise on his jaw, and I must say that it was a satisfying sight. I turned back around again, however, after observing his Ramones shirt and almost feeling quite ashamed to wonder where he'd got it. "If I tried to hit you from here, you'd pull my hair out."

I looked around my group for sympathy, and found none. Yugi and Tea were absorbed with Yami, who had come in with Bakura. Joey and Tristan had moved to a table so they could play that game where a coin is slid very hard towards your knuckles. I, personally, had never played; I didn't care much for having bloody and crucified knuckles. As for Malik, he was trying to balance a pencil on his nose. The third sixth former was sat on a table beside him, and kept lightly flicking the pencil as soon as Malik had got it balanced. Malik was retorting by stabbing him in the leg with said pencil.

Relieved as I was when Bakura finally let go of my hair, he disappointed me by coming and sitting himself on my lap. I kicked his ankle. "Do you mind?"

He leaned back against me. "Do you see any spare chairs?"

I peered briefly around the room and, seeing none, decided to keep quiet. Because of this there was an awkward silence between us, until I noticed a look cross his face; the same look that had been there just before he asked me if I liked anal. In the moment before he opened his mouth to speak, I have to admit that I was very suspicious.

"Ryou – that is your name, isn't it?" I nodded. "Don't you think that Yami and your friend are awfully cosy?"

If I wasn't interested in what he had to say before, I was now. My task might have been over sooner than I'd thought. I moved so that his shoulder wasn't blocking my vision and peered at the couple he was referring to. And he was right; if Yugi's face got any closer to Yami's, their noses would be touching, and they were looking nowhere apart from into each other's eyes. "Aren't they just?"

"Maybe they'll go out. Hey, you know who should go out? Genghis Khan and Stalin."

"…what?"

"You'll understand in time." He patted me on the head. Any other time, I would've complained about it. But that particular time, I was far too worried to complain. Had the subject of Yami and Yugi really been dismissed so quickly? Had the opportunity to sort out the mess I was in just disappeared before my eyes?

I could not have scolded myself more. I barely noticed as the bell went, or as Bakura got up and left with the other two sixth formers. I couldn't even look up as Tea and Tristan stood up and said goodbye before leaving for their form room. I just stared ahead at the wall. How could I have been stupid enough to let a huge opportunity like that pass? That had been my chance to find out from Bakura whether Yami liked Yugi, although it was painfully obvious to me that he did. And I just let it go. What if the opportunity never arose again? I might have been stuck with Bakura with a month. Or two months, or longer. This wasn't good. But it was only when my form tutor entered the room and ushered me away to my proper seat that I realised I had to get my act together if I wanted to be free of Bakura's company and Yugi's pestering. All my conversations with Bakura so far had been short and fruitless, and I had no one to blame but myself. I could no longer rely on Bakura to just tell me what I wanted to know if I pretended to be slightly nice to him. I'd have to make more of an effort from now on.

I fidgeted all the way through the first two lessons. As much as I'd never thought I'd hear myself say it, having to wait nearly two hours to see Bakura was hell. I couldn't concentrate on what they were trying to teach me; I knew it would cause me problems when they came to revising it with us but I was too preoccupied to care. I needed to speak to him, and I needed to find out about Yami as soon as possible.

Break couldn't come soon enough.

The moment to the bell for the end of the lesson rang, I hurried up to my form room and sat down in the nearest chair. I was the first one to get there, which was unusual; I supposed that everyone else nattered away on their way up so they walked slower than I had been. I was never normally in any particular hurry to get to the form room at break or lunch anyway. Everyone congregated there, or in the rooms that surrounded it, so it was always rather stuffy and loud. I didn't like places that were stuffy and loud, so it was a nice change to be there alone and in quiet. Except that the quiet was without peace. I couldn't stop tapping my foot; I was so impatient for Yami to turn up, looking for Yugi, and to bring Bakura with him. I stopped tapping my foot after a while, and tapped my nails on a table instead. Few by few, the others arrived, generally ignoring my presence, far too wrapped up in their stupid little conversations. It was just as well, really. I didn't want anyone questioning me as to why I was fidgeting and looking so impatient.

Yugi turned up with Tristan, and I mentally triumphed. They'd just had History together, I think. And, if Yugi was here, Yami would be more likely to turn up with Bakura. And, sure enough, after I had gone through ten minutes of tapping and picking at skin and looking at the clock, Yami turned up. To my dismay, however, Bakura was not with him. . It couldn't have annoyed me more; I actually felt quite stupid for expecting him to come. I decided to see if he turned up at lunch, and if not, I'd have to rethink my plan.

Sure enough, lunch came and Bakura was not there. I sat on a table. I must have looked quite miserable, or deep in thought or something, because Tea decided that whatever was bothering me was her business.

"What's up, Ryou?"

"Nothing."

"It's never nothing. Especially when you look so grouchy." I glared. "Are you annoyed about the Bakura thing?"

"Of course I am. I actually hate him."

"Oh, you're such a drama queen. I'm sure you don't hate him. You don't even know him, so how could you hate him?"

"Trust me, I hate him. I want nothing to do with him."

"Why aren't you giving him a chance? He can be nice, you know."

"Look, it really isn't any of your business." She held her hands up in surrender and walked back off to chat to Tristan. I knew she was only trying to be helpful, but a load of pestering about it was really not what I wanted.

I needed another way to go about getting this information. I'd tried waiting for him to turn up, but if he wasn't going to turn up then there was no point. I didn't really want to be asking people if they'd seen him, or where I could find him. I was just about willing to put in this little bit of effort, and I was certainly not willing to put in even more effort and have whoever I asked know that I was seeking him out. I couldn't even very well tell them why; they might tell him, and then he'd never tell me what I needed to know and I'd be stuck with him forever. But on the other hand, I couldn't see any other way of approaching the situation. I seemed quite stuck. The weirdest thing though, was that I cared whether people knew. If it was anyone else, anyone at all, I'd ask anyone I could find. It wouldn't bother me if anyone knew I was looking for them. But this time, it did bother me. It bothered me to a huge amount, which bothered me in itself.

Why did I care if people knew I was looking for Bakura? My excuse should have been that I hated him. But that brought inconsistencies, because I'd had to speak to people I didn't like before, and I'd had to ask other people where I could find them. I discovered, with a slight wave of uncertainty and fear, that I didn't have an excuse. I didn't care then, and I shouldn't care now but I did. It was a genuinely new experience to me, and I had to say that I was quite unnerved by it.

The rest of school passed by without event nor any sign of Bakura, and as the bell rang for the end of the day I found myself feeling discouraged and disappointed. I sat in my chair for much longer than was necessary as everyone else made a rush for the door, and once again I pondered my situation. I needed to find him, and I needed to find him soon. If he could be relied upon to actually turn up at the form room with Yami, I wouldn't have had to worry about it. But I couldn't rely on him, and for whatever reason it was surprisingly difficult for me to use other people to find out where he was. If I didn't find him, I'd have to keep trying to find him, even if I never did. That would have been terrible.

Hang on. I creased my eyebrows for a second in confusion, then returned them to normal and grinned to myself. I was being blind and stupid. Before that moment, I had been trying to find Bakura; my reason for this was that if I didn't find him, then I'd be metaphorically tied to him until I did find him. I'd never be free of him and I'd never be allowed to stop trying to get information out of him; Yugi wouldn't let me. However, I had had a revolution. I didn't think I'd find him, right? And I didn't want to find him, right? Then what on earth was I doing, carrying on trying? If I wasn't going to see him, then I would be unable to get any information out of him whether I wanted to or not. Yugi would have no choice but to appoint my task to someone else who would see Bakura. This realisation gave me peace of mind only for a split second.

Then my grin died down, and my expression turned to one of discomfort and worry. The happiness of being able to tell Yugi I was abandoning my task and to stop trying to find Bakura met an extremely abrupt end when I hit a very large fork in my road of thought. A fork for which I could think of no immediate reason.

I still wanted to find him.

**I'm not sure whether I'm pleased with this or not. Oh well, it'll have to do. Leave me reviews!**


	7. Let's Pretend

**I've finally got the ending sorted, and I've started to write it. It's super fun to write. Anyway, this'll probably be the last update before Christmas. Hopefully I'll update before my birthday though (6th January). Credit to TK, and…shall I dedicate the chapter to her, as a Christmas present? Yes, I think I will. There you go, TK. Anyway, I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

One thing I'd always hated was those moments you get every once in a while. For example, say you got on the train in the morning. You do it every morning because it's how you get to work. But today isn't a normal day at work; there's the opportunity for you to earn a promotion. All the important figures in the company are going to be there, sitting around a long table, while you show them a fantastic presentation and explain an ingenious way to get the company more money, be it by a wonderful new idea for a product or whatever. So, you're all geared up and the train has just started to move. Then you have a nasty thought; where is your bag? The bag that contains all the preparation, slides, evidence for your presentation? You remember setting it down on the kitchen table while you rushed to go to the loo before you left the house, and you get a nauseous feeling as you realise that you've left your bag on that table. You slouch in your seat on the train as you get further and further away from home, and wonder what you can do. You could tell the truth, and disappoint all the important figures. You could get the next train home, pick up your bag then come back, but then you'd be late and your presentation would be dismissed anyway. Or you could go home, go back to bed and kid yourself that it didn't happen, and forget all the about it by the next day. That's the moment. The moment when you discover that you have to pretend, because all your other options are worse.

I got up on Tuesday morning, after half a night of convincing myself that I wanted to find Bakura because I'd got used to it. It had become a purpose in my purposeless life and, reluctant as I was to admit it, I rather enjoyed feeling needed for something. Even if it was a stupid and unnecessary something.

Looking at the clock as I got out of bed, I found that I had overslept by a couple of hours. I must have forgotten to set an alarm what with all my discoveries the day before. As I was late anyway, I made no effort to hurry up and get ready for school. I took my time drinking my orange juice, showering and dressing; the only thing that happened quickly was the journey to school. I figured I'd aim to arrive at break so no teachers would shout at me, and it was bloody freezing outside. Winter was really beginning to set in.

"It's way crispy!"

"It is not! Get off!"

"It is! Stop moving, you're messing it up!"

"You're the one who's messing it up!"

Without looking up from a book she was reading, Tea interjected her advice. "Just ignore him, Malik. He's large."

The sight that welcomed me when I entered my form room, apart from Tea and her book, was Joey desperately trying to yank Malik's hair out of his head, and Malik trying to fend him off. Neither of them noticed my arrived, and continued their struggle. Joey was dragging Malik this way and that by his hair, with Malik protesting as violently as he possibly could in his position. After a while Joey fell backwards over a stray chair, and Malik fell with him because of Joey's relentless grip on his hair. Of course, when Joey took the full force of both his and Malik's fall, it was Malik who had the upper hand.

I stood to observe their little scuffle for a whole longer before pulling up a chair with Tea, Tristan and Yugi. Tristan was first to get a word in. "You little skiver."

Yugi was next. "Yeah, I bet. What lesson was there this morning that you didn't want to go to, hmm?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but Tea got there before me. "It is nice of you to grace us with your presence. Where have you been?"

"I'll tell you if you'll give me the chance!" There was a pause. "Right. I went into town to buy some orange juice, because I ran out."

Tristan raised an eyebrow. "It took you a while, didn't it?"

I shrugged. "I couldn't find the one I like."

There was another pause.

"You're a crank." This was Tea's last input before she returned to her book.

"She's right, y'know." It was my turn to raise an eyebrow at Tristan. "Normal people don't care what orange juice they buy as long as it is orange juice. Besides which, you drink an unhealthy amount of it."

Yugi looked a little puzzled. "How is that possible? Isn't orange juice about as healthy as it gets?"

"Well…yeah. But I swear, if Ryou drinks any more than he does at the moment, he'll explode or something."

"Actually, he probably will. You hear that, Ryou? You're gonna explode. In a big orange explosion."

"I am not going to explode." I stretched in my chair.

"Yeah, you are. Oh, and by the way. Bakura was in here looking for you this morning."

I forced my expression to remain neutral as I beat myself up in the head. "What did he want?"

"I'm not sure, he just asked where you were. We told him you weren't in."

Well, that was a bit of a blow. If he didn't think I was in, then he probably wouldn't be visiting us again that day. I was appalled at my own laziness. Because I had been stupid enough to not set an alarm I had missed the opportunity to talk to Bakura again. So I could get the Yugi business sorted out, obviously.

I was kept behind after lunch because a teacher had noticed my absence in the morning. He droned on for at least ten minutes after I'd lied about the reason, telling me about how it was wrong to miss school unless you were lying on your deathbed and that if I kept up that kind of behaviour I would fail my GCSEs and then I wouldn't get into college so I'd have to go do some shit job that pays the minimum wage for the rest of my life. I didn't pay much attention. The doors had glass windows in them, and through this particular window I had a pretty good view of some kiddies practicing some kind of dance.

Eventually he let me go, and when I got to my form room I was greeted with a sight so peculiar it took me a considerable amount of effort to keep moving. It was Bakura, which was surprising enough. On top of that, somewhere he had managed to get hold of a Union Jack man thong. A really big one. He was wearing it, but not properly; instead of the sides being at his sides, where one would assume they should go, they were over his shoulders. It was that big, and it almost looked like braces. And he was dancing around the room with his arms in the air, and a sodding great grin on his face. I, personally, didn't find it very funny, but the others were going to end up losing their ribs if they weren't careful.

I walked across the room, not taking my eyes off Bakura. Then he saw me, and his grin got larger if it was even possible. He ran, and before I could do anything about it he pounced at me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and his legs around my waist. I'm not sure whether it was because of the shock or just because of the extra weight, but I fell over backwards and ended up lying on the floor with him on top of me.

Then, I didn't know how it happened. I didn't even know what it was exactly that happened. There just seemed to be quiet, like everyone had disappeared and the two of us were the only ones left in the room. And he was so…close. The only things I knew at that moment were his breath on my neck and his body on top of mine. He was very warm. My hands began to move of their own accord; I couldn't stop it. They landed on his shoulders, mixing with his hair.

It was as if I snapped back to reality after that. I could see everyone else, and they were still laughing. Probably because of our fall. I then realised that my hands were still on his shoulders, and I pushed him away from me. It was like an automatic response. I wriggled backwards so I was no longer beneath him and stood up, brushing myself off and rubbing my lower back. The pain was starting to kick in, and I knew my back would probably ache by the morning.

"Don't do that."

He sat up on the floor, cross-legged, and laughed at me. "Alright, alright. It's more fun when I do it to Yami, anyway."

At the mention of Yami's name, I scanned the room in search of him. And I found him, surprise, surprise, chatting to Yugi. Still looking at them, I took a step closer to Bakura and brought the subject up. "Hey…what do you think of Yugi?"

"Hm? What, munchkin over there?"

"Yeah."

He turned to look at Yugi briefly, then turned back to me. "He's alright. Not exactly the kind of bloke I'd go for, but still. Why?"

"What do you mean?" When he said the word 'bloke', it made me completely alter the direction of the conversation. I quickly realised what I'd done and knew I needed to get back on track. Luckily, Bakura did it for me.

"I'm gay, in case you didn't know. And I wouldn't go for a guy like Yugi. Yugi is more Yami's kind of guy. Just look at them, they're all over each other. It makes me want to be copiously sick."

"Yami likes him?"

Bakura nodded, and I experienced a strange feeling. Primarily, I was pleased. The conversation could be ended right there and then, and so could my 'friendship' with Bakura. I knew what I'd needed to know, and now I could bugger off and tell Yugi. But then there was another feeling, I couldn't explain it. I wanted to keep talking to him, I didn't want our association to end. It brought back the strange feeling from when he jumped at me, and I quickly resolved not to dwell on it because it made me nervous.

"I know what you mean though. When they're together, they're really together. Why can't they get a room? Or at least a dark corner."

"I suppose they think nobody cares. Here, help me up." He extended his hand up towards me, and with a little hesitation I took it and pulled him up from the floor.

We stood for a moment in silence. Then he turned to look at Yami and Yugi, grinned, and ran towards them, putting one arm around Yugi's shoulder and the other arm around Yami's shoulder. He leaned between their faces, and started nodding and saying 'yep' after every sentence they said. He was a fool.

I heard a wolf whistle behind me, and it gave me an excuse to look away from Bakura. Tea came up beside me with a very unnerving expression on her face; it was almost a knowing look, saying 'I know what you're doing', but it couldn't be because I wasn't doing anything. She leaned against a desk and started giggling quietly to herself.

"What's the matter with you?"

He giggles subsided. "Oh Ryou, you do amuse me. You think no one's noticed."

I creased my eyebrows. "Noticed what?"

She giggled again, but didn't answer.

"What?"

"You and Bakura."

"What about me and Bakura?"

"You're secretly going out. Or you fancy him, at least."

I tried to laugh at her misunderstanding, I really did, but it came out as a high pitched, pathetic, worried-sounding laugh. "I don't know what you're talking about. We're not secretly going out, and I don't fancy him."

"I think someone's lying."

"Shut up." I didn't know what was the matter with me. Why was I finding the subject so difficult to brush off as nothing? It was nothing. It wasn't like I had anything to hide, because I didn't fancy Bakura. I really didn't. He was rude, loud, stupid and looked like he didn't wash his hair. Besides which, I fancied girls.

It was later on that day, after I had got home and collapsed on my bed that I properly examined that statement. I fancied girls. Of course I did, it was the norm. I knew a lot of teens went though fazes where they thought they were gay or something, but I couldn't see that ever happening to me.

The first inkling of doubt I had was when it came to my attention that I had never had a proper girlfriend. There had been girls who fancied me, sure. I could name at least three from when I was in year nine. But I just hadn't been interested in any of them. It was the wrong girls who fancied me, and not the right ones.

The real doubt came when I couldn't think of any right girls. At all. I thought back to when I started puberty, and thus when I should have started being attracted to people. I thought through my remaining year of primary school, and through the five years of high school. There must have at least been one girl I was attracted to and wanted a relationship with. I couldn't think of anyone in primary school. In the first year of high school, I could only remember making my friends. I hadn't even been attracted to Tea when I first met her. The other years I could only remember as being uneventful and lacking where romantic interests were concerned. Even now, I could not think of a single girl I was attracted to in that way. Not one.

So where did that leave me? I'd never fancied a girl, so how did I know that I ever would? Where was my proof the one time I needed it? The worst part about it all was Bakura. What had happened when he pounced at me earlier? Perhaps Tea was right. Perhaps she knew these things better than I did. Which would mean that I fancied Bakura; not only that, but I fancied a guy. It couldn't be possible. Surely I would have known if I fancied blokes instead of birds?

I don't know what time I fell asleep that night. I just know that when I did fall asleep, I was still telling myself that Tea was wrong.

**Ohhh, it's all coming out now. I hope everybody has a good Chsitmas. Oh, and speaking of Christmas, tell me – should I write a Christmas one shot or not? I can't decide. Review please.**


	8. Queer

**Happy new year everyone. Guess what? It's my birthday on Saturday. Great, huh? Anyway. Chapter is here. Credit to TK. I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

"Oh my God. It's so hot in here. Can't you open a window or something, sir?"

"But I like it cosy."

"Yes, but there's a difference between cosy and greenhouse."

"It's the middle of winter, you don't want the window open."

"I really do!"

I walked into English and found myself agreeing completely with Malik; it was far too hot and stuffy. It might as well have been a rainforest. Our teacher noticed me as I closed the door.

"Ryou..." he glanced at his register. "You weren't here last lesson."

I sat down and began to take out the books I needed from my bag. "Orthodontist."

"Have you signed in?"

"Yes."

"Ok, good. Are there going to be any more interruptions, or can we carry on reading the play now? No? Good."

Everyone who had been looking at me turned back to their copies of a play we were studying, and I opened mine after Malik whispered the page number to me. I, of course, hadn't really been at the orthodontist. My teeth were as straight as they always had been. I just hadn't wanted to risk facing Bakura. I had woken up that morning a good two hours before my alarm went off, and I had an opportunity to reflect on the situation I had found myself in. It had been two hours of repeating myself, arguing with myself, hitting things, rolling around and lying to myself, but the conclusion I had come to was that my head was playing tricks on me. I hadn't really given it much thought when Bakura told me he was gay. I figured that my mind had been reading into things in ways to make them fit with his homosexuality, like when I became painfully aware of my lack of girlfriends. My mind had implied that that meant I liked guys. And it had suggested that I must have liked Bakura because he was gay too.

It was lucky that I was smart enough to figure it all out. Otherwise I would have been tricked into thinking I fancied Bakura when I actually didn't, resulting in unnecessary embarrassment for me and unnecessary confusion for him.

Malik elbowed me in the ribs and, realising that I should be taking notes, I looked for a pen. At least I now had an explanation for the incident with Bakura the day before, and any other incidents that might happen in future.

Unfortunately, it was the first of these future incidents that again made me start second guessing myself. Halfway though lunch that day Bakura, Yami and the third sixth former, whose name I still hadn't learnt, came into the form room. Yami, as always, made a beeline for Yugi, who had jumped up as soon as Yami entered the room. The unnamed guy went for Malik, who was concentrating on making a card pyramid and didn't notice him coming until it was too late and his pyramid was blown down.

Bakura sat himself on a table next to me, which I must say I was sort of expecting. He seemed to socialise with me more than any of the others. It was a shame really, since I didn't like him very much. What made it even more awkward was all the thinking I had been doing about him and all the realisations I had come to. It made it very difficult for me. I couldn't just be myself around him anymore, because my mind might play another trick on me and I might give him the wrong idea. But, at the same time, I didn't want to be cruel like I had been before. It was probably another trick, but still. It was like I had to walk on eggshells, and I certainly had to watch my words very carefully.

He scared the shit out of me when he slapped his hand onto my shoulder. "How's life then, my boy?"

I kept looking ahead. "Great."

He, after fishing around in his pocket, produced a small yellow packet and held it towards me. "Want some bubble gum?"

"Not really, no."

"Suit yourself." He shrugged and started trying to open the packet. "Did you hear about Yami's little episode earlier?"

"No."

He clapped his hands a few times, still holding the unopened yellow packet. "You should've seen it, it was pure quality, I'm telling you. There were these year seven kids at the top of the stairs, right? Mouthy little buggers. They started yelling about how Yami and I should get haircuts, and Yami had a fit, I swear. It was like he went mad! He ran up the stairs, like, three at a time. When he was halfway up, one of the kids dropped chewing gum into his hair, and it was like he transformed into some kind of beast. Started roaring and going all red in the face. See that chunk missing from his hair? That's where he had to cut the gum out."

Yami must've been picking out words from what Bakura was saying, and he turned around with a very suspicious expression. "What're you saying about me, you shit?"

Bakura finally got into his bubble gum and wasted no time in shoving the small coloured ball into his mouth. "I was just saying…about how, earlier, with those kids…the colour of your face! Oh my God…it was priceless." He had barely got the words out before he screwed his face up and started to make noises like he was choking. His bubble gum must've been sour.

Yugi, meanwhile, was staring at Yami. "What happened earlier? Tell me."

Yami clearly didn't want to tell him. "Well, uh…"

I left the two of them to sort that out between themselves while I turned my attention back to the wall and table in front of me. I heard a relieved sigh from next to me, indicating that the sourness of the bubble gum had calmed down a bit. "God, it was so funny."

"That's nice."

Bakura sighed again. I heard him get up from the table next to me and I tried not to watch as he sat down again on the table I was looking at. "What's your problem today? It's like someone's shoved a lemon up your arse."

I gave him a look to tell him that he was beginning to piss me off. He should know better than to say things like that to me; hadn't I already told him that I didn't like him? Unless Tea had opened her big mouth, he had no reason to believe otherwise.

"Don't look at me like that. What's up?"

I looked away from him.

"Oh, come on." He proceeded to sit on my lap and wrap his arm around my shoulders. "Tell Uncle Bakura all about it."

I could feel my face going red. And then something terrible happened.

I knew I had to leave right away. In one very not-swift movement I stood up and pushed him away from me as hard as I could. It was a very lucky thing that everyone else was too wrapped up in their own trivial conversations to really notice. I had never been in such a hurry to get out of a place in my life; I didn't even allow time to apologise to Bakura for causing him to smack his face on the side of the table he landed on. I mumbled quickly that I had to do something, and promptly turned and ran, picking up my bag on the way.

I ended up in the toilets, which thankfully were empty. I leaned on one of the sinks with both hands and stared at myself in the mirror. That had quite possibly been the worst time ever for a, uh, 'problem' to pop up. I just hoped to God that I had pushed Bakura off me before he had noticed it. If he had noticed it then I was screwed. Utterly, royally screwed. There would be no way in hell that I could convince Bakura, or myself for that matter, that I wasn't attracted to him. He would never leave me alone and I would be plagued every day by his presence, and no doubt his reminders about what had just happened. Even if he hadn't noticed, I was going to have a hard time thinking up a reasonable excuse for my behaviour.

Splashing some cold water on my face, I began to wonder why it had happened at all. I had already explained to myself that I wasn't attracted to Bakura. Perhaps my mind had just decided to pull an especially cruel prank. Or, an incredibly less preferable explanation was that maybe I really did like him. Either way, I was getting quite sick of these non-stop inconsistencies and opted to, however embarrassing it would be, get a second opinion.

It was raining by the time school finished, and it seemed like it had been raining for hours. There was water filling up every dent and crack in the path. It was soaking up the ends of my trousers; every step I took resulted in a splash of water on the back of my leg. I usually liked rain. I liked drizzle, and I liked it in huge drops, and I liked it in the summer. I just didn't like it freezing cold, up the back of my leg and making my hair frizzy, when I had to be walking and didn't have an umbrella or a coat.

I arrived at the fast food place sodding wet. There was not a single bit of me that wasn't dripping with rain. I spotted my friend at a table by the window, and it was lucky for him that I did; I wasn't in the mood to be stood up. Making my way over to where he was sitting, I took off my school blazer and began to wring it out.

I had known Duke for years. When I was little, the ice cream man had come and I couldn't afford anything. But Duke saw me suffering and he, having pots of money, bought me an ice cream. He was still insisting that I hadn't paid him back. He was also very bisexual, which made him the source of my second opinion. Well, that and I figured it was about time he did me another favour. He was three years older than me too, meaning that he was more experienced with this kind of problem than any of my other friends.

Dumping my damp blazer on the table, I sat in the chair opposite him and started squeezing the rain out of my hair. He took one look at me and started to laugh. "Raining much?"

"Very funny."

"So," he began, eating a curly fry from a packet I hadn't previously noticed, "what was so urgent that you had to ring me in the middle of class?"

I helped myself to a curly fry. "Like hell you were in class. You're never in class."

"What if I had been? You'd have got my phone taken away."

"I didn't though, did I?"

"You did, actually. That girl you could hear took it. Didn't you wonder why I ended the call so abruptly?"

"I didn't think I wanted to know." As I said, Duke had pots of money. He was the creator of a game popular among kids, and his father was an important figure in an international company. Because of this, he preferred not to get proper girlfriends or boyfriends. He felt much better hiring prostitutes and finding blokes at gay bars who only wanted sex. I had never understood this preference; I'd have much rather had something meaningful. I had told Duke this before, and he had argued that sex in any way, shape or form was meaningful, no matter who it was with.

"Anyway, you bum. You've called me all the way out here, and now you're trying to change the subject. What's the matter with you?"

I briefly pondered how I should tell him. I could ask him a question, I could explain it slowly, or I could say it quickly. Figuring it was like taking a plaster off, I decided to do it quickly. "I think I fancy a guy."

He snorted.

"But I'm not sure."

We sat in silence for a moment or two, and then we waved his hand in the air. "And…? You interrupted my moment of passion to tell me that?"

I glared at him. "It's a big thing. Don't make fun of me."

He stuffed three more curly fries into his mouth. "Well…how can you not be sure? You either like him or you don't. Simple as."

"I can't tell. At first I hated him, then he grew on me, then I thought my mind was playing tricks on me because he told me he was gay, then…"

"Then…?"

I regretted adding then to 'then' end of my sentence. What had happened earlier was not something I had intended discussing. "I, uh, changed my mind again."

He started smirking, and dangled a curly fry in the air in front of me. "You're not telling me something. Out with it. Now."

I knew I'd never win if I argued. Duke was a bit like Yugi when it came to arguing. Difference was, Duke could win without even looking at you, whereas Yugi couldn't keep up a decent argument without using his eyes to persuade you. "Well…" I cleared my throat in a desperate attempt to buy myself some time.

"Don't make me get the hose."

"I'm getting there!" I looked at the table to avoid some of the embarrassment. "I saw him today, and…uh…he…" I started picking at my shirt collar nervously, a little worried about how loudly Duke would react. "He came and…and, uh, sat on my lap, and-"

"Oh, Ryou! You didn't!"

I didn't look at him. The longer I didn't look at him, the more amusing he seemed to find the situation.

"You did, didn't you? You got a boner! You horny devil!"

Then I did look at him, angrily. "Have you every thought about keeping your voice down?"

That did stop his shouting, but his laughter didn't die down for quite some time. When it did, I looked out of the window while he finished his curly fries. I couldn't believe he had shouted it so loudly; I hadn't wanted anyone to know, let alone the whole country.

"Well," he threw his empty bag in the bin behind him, "I don't know what you need to ask me about, to be honest. If you didn't like him, you wouldn't be having all this confusion about it. You certainly wouldn't be getting hard around him if you didn't like him at all."

I tapped my fingers on the table. "But…I can't like him. I'm not bi or gay, for a start."

"I think someone's lying."

"You know, what's exactly what Tea said."

"We can't both be wrong." He leaned back in his chair.

I was struggling to find a suitable argument, and it was worrying. "…you must be. Even just a bit. I'd know if I was attracted to him, right?"

Duke looked at me almost like he pitied me. "Then what made you think you needed to talk to me? I'll answer for you, shall I? You think you like girls. You fancy a guy. You've convinced yourself you don't fancy a guy because you think you like girls. Well, I've got news for you. You're wrong. If you were right, we wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation. Just make everyone's lives easier and admit it, Ryou; whoever this guy is, you're a raving queer for him."

**Hope that was ok. You know what'd be a great birthday present? Reviews.**


	9. Poker Face

**What's up with the review alerts? I only started getting emails, like, yesterday for them. Thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday; it was lots of fun and I spent a lot of daddy's money. Anyway. Chapter. Credit to TK and Dodd. I don't own Yugioh or Smarties or Spirograph. Apologies about Ryou and Bakura and their dirty mouths.**

SMILE

Stupid Duke. Stupid rain. Stupid hormones.

I didn't want to be a gay. Let alone a raving one. It was just so out of character for me. I mean, I watched football and drank beer. Girls loved me.

But then, I supposed I had only watched football once, when my father came home for a few days during the world cup and he didn't give me any choice but to watch it. It bored me to tears. It was the same case with the beer; my father had arrived back in time for Christmas once and insisted that I loosened up. I wasn't lying about girls loving me though. At least, they used to. I just didn't like them very much.

I involuntarily began to back up Duke's statement. I guessed I was abnormally concerned about the state of my hair. The all too obvious factor was that I'd never fancied a girl in my life. I could be awfully bitchy, like a girl. I hated sport, I didn't really like the 'manly' drinks and I didn't obsess over boobs. But still…there was no way…

Ah, who was I kidding? Apart from the lisp, I was the gay male stereotype. For Bakura, at least.

Right.

Now that I'd admitted it, I was having trouble accepting it. I thought it was an incredibly cruel trick for life to play on me. My day had started in the usual way – getting up, showering and whatnot; now it had changed completely. Was this going to close doors in my planned out future? Of course it was. I had imagined myself with a family. A wife. Beautiful children. Two blokes couldn't have a child. Well, I guessed they could adopt, but I was veering off the subject. It wasn't just a family that would be limited; whether I liked it or not, a lot of people were against homosexuality. If my preferences were to become known, I was likely to be victimised and beaten up.

It was not a happy prospect. I got home pretty late and collapsed onto my sofa, dripping with rain, not bothered in the slightest about making the sofa wet. Perhaps I should try to look at the upside of the situation? First I had to think of some upsides. Well, Bakura was gay, which I had already established thoroughly. So at least I wasn't alone. And I never saw him being victimised for it, so why should I be?

That made me feel a tad better, but not as much as I would've liked. I changed into dry pyjama bottoms because I didn't really want pneumonia or anything, but I went to sleep with my hair still wet in the hope that I would have a cold before tomorrow. That way I could take the day off school and think about my plan of action.

I was still perfectly healthy when my alarm woke me up the next morning. It wasn't fair; I really needed the day off but I knew that if I missed any more coursework I would be seriously behind in a lot of my lessons. My education, unfortunately, took priority. So, as I drank my orange juice and checked I had the right books in my bag, I noted that my temporary plan would be to avoid Bakura at all costs. I dreaded to think what might happen if we were to see each other, especially with what had happened last time. No doubt he would be wanting an explanation as to why I smashed his face into a table, and that was an explanation I hadn't quite thought up yet.

I didn't see him at break, and I was relieved when I saw that it was about twelve o clock. That meant I was halfway through the day, but I didn't jump for joy just yet. I didn't want to jinx it. Lunch came and I decided to be more careful than I was at break; at break I had just sat in the corner of the room. But Bakura came at lunch more often, so I figured I would take a walk around the school, and maybe buy a cookie in the cafeteria. No one noticed me leave the form room; Joey and Tristan were playing the game with the coin again, Yugi and Tea were talking about Yami quite loudly and Malik was far too occupied with a Spirograph to care that I was going anywhere.

I wandered for a while, then went to buy my cookie. I chose a chocolate one with Smartie-like sweets in it. I had forgotten how nice they were; I managed to eat mine within twenty seconds of buying it, and couldn't resist going to get another one. The second one lasted much longer. I ate it in small bites instead of two big ones. I had just put the last piece in my mouth when I glanced into a classroom I was passing and saw the one person I hadn't wanted to see.

It didn't take me long to realise he had seen me too, and I sped up very quickly. At that point I didn't care that I looked a bit suspicious, I was only concerned about getting away before he caught up with me. I was so concerned about it that I stopped chewing my cookie. My aim was to get to the closest stairs as quickly as possible, and luckily for me they were only a few steps away. Luckily for Bakura, he beat me to it and ended up blocking my way. I didn't look at him and concentrated on trying to go around him. He simply moved so he was always in my way. I should have stayed in the form room.

"I need to talk to you. Why didn't you come in when I waved to you?"

"I forgot to turn."

"That's the shittest excuse I've ever heard."

We stood in silence for a moment, and I remembered the piece of cookie in my mouth.

"What was all that about yesterday?"

"All what?"

"Don't 'all what' me. You know what you did."

"I don't, actually." My words were being blurred because of my cookie. I'm surprised he understood what I was saying.

"How can you not remember smashing a poor defenceless guy's face into a table then running away without so much as an apology?"

"Sorry." I tried to get round him again, but it seemed he wasn't finished.

"'Sorry' doesn't cut it or explain it. You've had a stick up your arse for a while now, and it's something to do with me."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, firstly the way you brutally attacked me yesterday. And will you hurry up and swallow whatever the fuck you've got in your mouth?"

"Don't shout at my cookie!" I was a bit offended but I swallowed it all the same. It was beginning to feel like pulp.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"Fuck, Ryou, stop it!"

I raised an eyebrow and finally looked at him. "Stop what?"

"That! It's doing my head in."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You being so in denial!"

That did surprise me. I'd just started accepting stuff and everything. "How am I in denial?"

"You just are! I'm not sure what about, but you keep doing it. You pretend you don't know shit, but you do and it's really getting on my nerves."

I was beginning to anger, and I remembered why I hated him in the first place. "Look, what're you trying to accuse me of?"

"You fucking tell me!"

"Stop swearing at me!"

He seemed to calm down a bit when I said this, and I wasn't sure why it had so much impact. He was silent for a moment catching his breath. "Sorry. It's just getting to me, y'know?"

I was getting quite confused. "No, I don't know."

"Are you trying to make me mad on purpose?"

"Of course not! I honestly do not understand what you're saying."

He raked a hand through his appallingly knotty hair. "I'm trying to get what's going on. It's like your opinion of me changes every day. First you hate me, then you seemed to tolerate me, then it was like we were friends. Yesterday you hated me again and we were back to square one."

I felt a burning need to explain myself, but managed to restrain it. "It's not like that."

He looked at me. "Then what is it like?"

I had never been the most convincing liar in the world, but I was going to give it my best shot. I hesitated for a second and looked at the floor before saying, "It's all the same. I still don't like you. That's the end of it."

He almost looked a bit hurt. "You're a terrible liar."

I didn't move, but gave a sort of defeated smile. "What?"

"I know when people are lying because they don't look at you and they usually scratch their nose or mouth."

"I've had an itchy nose all week."

"Damn it, Ryou!" He was looking a bit exasperated. "Why are you lying?"

I couldn't tell him the truth.

"Whatever you're hiding can't be that bad, can it?"

I couldn't tell him.

"What're you so afraid of?"

I couldn't.

"It's not like I'll tell anyone, or make fun of you or anything."

It'd drive me mad.

"C'mon, tell me."

"…no."

"It's about me; I have a right to know."

"I can't."

"Yes you can, you just won't."

"Both."

"Why not?"

"I just fucking can't. I feel better when other people don't know my business, including you. It's not your place, either, to stick your fucking nose in where it's not wanted! Why I do what I do is for me to know, not the rest of you bastards."

"Now who's swearing?"

I folded my arms. If that hadn't got my point across, I didn't know what else there was to try.

Bakura crossed one arm across his chest and with his other hand he rubbed his face. He then crouched a tad so his face was level with mine. "What is it going to take for you to tell me? As long as it concerns me, I'm not going to stop bugging you. What do I have to do, hm? I'll buy you a cookie if you want."

I snorted. "You think I can be bribed?"

"Maybe. Every man has his price."

"I don't."

"…a super size cookie? With chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, those coloured things and icing?"

"Tempting. But I don't like white chocolate."

"Darn it. Ah hah! I know. No one could possibly refuse this. Come on."

He started down the stairs and, although I wasn't entirely sure why, I followed. This could have been my chance to get away. I guess I was just curious about what he thought he could tempt me with. I must admit though, I started to get suspicious as he led me off school premises. I had thought his idea would have been in school. When I gave a small noise of unsure protest, he said without turning round, "Don't worry, it's not far. They'll never know."

We stopped outside a small shop, and he told me to wait outside while he went in. I waited. I paced around a bit. Tapped my foot, hummed a couple of untitled tunes. What could he have been buying me? I doubted it would be a cookie of any description. Maybe it was one of those shit quality plastic bat and ball sets. Some other kind of sweet wouldn't have surprised me either. Or perhaps he wasn't aware that I didn't drink, and was going to try and get away with buying some alcohol? One thing was certain – I could not be bribed with anything that could be bought at a corner shop.

He emerged from the shop some minutes later with his hands behind his back and a huge grin on his face. Whatever it was he had bought, he was obviously certain it would work, whereas I was equally certain that it wouldn't. We stood silently for a few moments before I got sick of it.

"Well? What do you think you can tempt me with?"

His hands emerged from behind his back. With his hands emerged a carton of orange juice.

"…orange juice?"

"Yep. Orange juice. You know you can't resist."

"I can, and I will. I have an inexhaustible supply of that already." I was pleased he'd picked something so easy to refuse. At the same time though, I was a little surprised that he liked orange juice that much,

"You do? Fuck. Oh well." He took the lid off the carton and started to drink out of it.

"That's unhygienic, you know."

He stopped drinking and shrugged. "Not if I'm the only one drinking it."

"Say I wanted some?"

He gave a small laugh. "I thought you weren't tempted?"

"I'm not. It was hypothetical."

"Sure." He drank some more then put the lid back on. "So, are you going to tell me yet?"

I turned around and started to walk away. "Fucking hell, not this again."

He followed me. "Look, I told you I'd be asking until you told me. What did you expect me to do?"

"I expected you to show some respect for my privacy!"

He grabbed my arm but I turned around and pulled myself free. "I would if your private business didn't involve me!"

"Who said it did?"

"You haven't said it doesn't! Why won't you just tell me? It can't be that huge a deal! I'll never speak to you again afterwards if that's what it's going to take!"

"As much as I'd like that, I only have your word. And unfortunately it's still not enough!"

We were both shouting quite loudly by this point. It was a good thing the street was pretty empty. I reckoned that if anyone could hear us it would be the shop keeper as the door to the shop was open. The carton of orange juice lay discarded on the pavement; I had heard Bakura throw it down in frustration as I tried to walk away. The lid had come off too. What a waste.

"Then what is enough? You'll have to tell me, you've exhausted all my ideas!"

"There isn't an 'enough'! Nothing you could possibly do or say could make me tell you!" As I said this I felt as if I had triumphed in some way, but even so I could feel myself losing control of my mouth. He was making me really angry, which was making me feel uneasy about what I might unintentionally give away.

"There is something, and I swear to God I'll find out what it is!"

"Like hell you will!"

"Look, I have a right to know!"

"You have no such right whatsoever! You don't even know if it's about you at all!"

"If it wasn't, you wouldn't be fucking shouting in my face, would you?"

"I'm shouting because you're pissing me off!"

"You're shouting to avoid telling me!"

"I don't want to tell you!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want it to get out!" I mentally cringed as soon as the words left my mouth. That was one of the things I really should have kept to myself.

He certainly seemed more intrigued than before, and stopped shouting for an instant. "What, is it embarrassing or something?"

I looked up at him, and I knew I had panic written all over my face. I tried to walk away again but he stopped me.

"Just tell me, I don't care if it's embarrassing."

He was making me feel quite humiliated, and it caused me to shout again. "It's none of your fucking business!"

"It is if it's about me!"

I began to struggle against the grip he had on my arm. "Let me go and get out of my face!"

He simply tightened his grip and raised his voice, reminding me of the kind of authority you get in the army. "Tell me!"

I broke free of him and spun to face him, anger written all over me. "Alright then! I fancy you! Happy now?"

Oh. Fuck.

**Do be do be do. That was fun. It made me happy when I got lots of reviews for the last chapter; let's try that again, yeah?**


	10. The Actor

**Sorry that took so long. I've had lots of coursework, as well as Digimon on the brain. It made it difficult to concentrate. But it's done now, yes? So enjoy. I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

Inevitably, both of us were slapped in a two hour detention for walking out of school. We were sat at opposite ends of the room (me at the front, Bakura at the back) and told to sit in silence for the first hour and write about why bunking school was wrong for the second hour. We weren't alone, thank God; although we were the only students, there was a teacher sat at the front of the room making sure we didn't exchange even a glance.

Not that I wanted to glance at Bakura at the moment. So far we were half an hour in, and I was staring out of the window in quite a rage. I wasn't even sure what I was angry at. I couldn't pinpoint it. It was a mixture of being angry at myself for losing my temper and therefore losing control of my mouth, being angry at Bakura for provoking me enough to lose my temper, being angry at Duke for acting as the catalyst for this whole situation and being angry at the faculty for putting me in this pointless detention that I didn't think I really deserved. It wasn't my fault I had to walk out of school; they could have just given Bakura my two hours as well as his.

It all just made me so mad. I took my pen, which I had been vaguely amusing myself with by balancing it on my fingers, and started carving a stick man massacre into the table. I couldn't believe I had blurted it out. In the middle of the street, no less. Was my self control really lacking that much? If it was, my life could end up being quite a disaster. For me, there was nothing worse than the image I had in my mind of myself at thirty, sitting in a poky, cluttered flat playing an acoustic guitar and having dirty hair. It was really, really unpleasant. I'd always thought that my life would be great, or at least above average; the house would have three storeys and a huge garden, and I'd have a job with a six figure income. If I managed to find a nice girl (and I was really beginning to hope that I would sooner or later) I'd marry her and we'd have a family. Three kids, maybe?

However, these dreams would not be achieved if I continued to exercise so little self control. Sorting out this problem would be difficult. I sighed quietly and concentrated on my doodling. When I paid attention to it, I actually quite liked my massacre. One stick man had a chainsaw, and there were many randomly placed heads and limbs surrounding him. I began to elaborate when a shadow fell over the table. It made it very difficult to see what I was doing.

"Ryou?"

I looked up to see the teacher looming rather ominously in front of me and looking very stern. "What?"

"Give me the pen."

I didn't want to. It was the only thing stopping me tearing my hair out in boredom. "Why?"

"Because you're drawing on the desk. You wouldn't like it if someone drew all over your desk, would you?"

"I wouldn't really care."

"Stop answering back and give me the pen."

I held my pen tighter. "I am not giving you the pen. It's not like the tables aren't already vandalised beyond recognition."

"That doesn't mean you should contribute to it." He held his hand out. "Come on, pen or you'll get another detention."

I was about to answer when a voice from the back of the room piped up, "Hey, Sir, this desk says you're a shithole."

We both turned around to look at Bakura, although our expressions were completely different. Mine was a sort of 'what the hell?' look, whereas Sir looked as if he'd just been smacked in the face. He spluttered before managing to gasp out, "A what?"

Bakura looked far too happy. "A shithole."

Sir seemed to completely forget about taking away my pen as he stormed over to where Bakura was sitting. A battle of words ensued, ending badly on Bakura's part as Sir rushed away in a single person stampede to fetch a member of senior staff. I was glad he was gone; it meant I was free to draw again of my own free will. But then in a way I hoped he'd come back quickly, because as long as he was gone I was alone with Bakura. Which was bad.

I had turned back around and was facing the front again. The both of us sat in a rather awkward silence for a few moments before he decided that something had to be said. "Aren't you going to thank me?"

"What the hell could I need to thank you for?"

"I stopped him giving you another detention."

"You only postponed it."

He didn't reply, and I went back to my massacre. At first I couldn't decide whether I wanted a stick man with a sword or a stick man with a rifle, but this was before I realised how stupid I was being and that I could just draw both.

"You know, you never told me you were gay. We could have gone out."

I slammed my pen down but managed to resist the urge to turn around. "I'm not gay."

"You're bi?"

"No!"

"You must be one or the other."

"Well I'm not."

"Then how can you fancy me?"

"I just do."

"It's because I'm special, isn't it?"

"You're the most non-special person I've ever met."

"Then you must just be bi."

"I'm not!" I picked at my drawings with my nails. Bakura really knew how to get on my nerves.

"It isn't anything to be ashamed of, you know. If I were you, I'd fancy me too."

"Well, you're not me."

"But you still fancy me!"

I, once again beginning to lose my temper, turned around in my chair. "Look, are you just going to poke fun at me? Because if you are, I'm not interested. I can't help fancying you; it's not like I chose you out of everyone. And besides, I could survive perfectly well without talking to you at all. Or even seeing you. So it's not like you're all that important anyway."

The happy smirk never left his face. "I must be a bit important. If I wasn't, you wouldn't fancy me."

I turned back to the front, having decided that I wouldn't even bother anymore. So he was good looking and he'd grown on me, that didn't mean he was tolerable all the time. From where I was standing I thought I was dealing with the whole situation rather well. It wasn't like I'd tried to kill myself or anything. And besides, I was sure I'd get over it sooner or later. But still, it would have been nice if Bakura stopped being so uptight about it. I wasn't easily bothered by other people's opinions, but when it was Bakura making fun of me because I fancied him it got on my nerves more than just a little.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't sound very sorry, so I didn't reply. Picking at the table was more interesting than listening to him anyway.

"I shouldn't be so horrible. It's not your fault I'm that irresistible."

I gritted my teeth. I didn't even think he was trying too hard, and he was annoying me immensely; I really didn't want to imagine how pissed off he could make me if he tried.

I heard him laugh quietly, then, "Ok, I'm properly sorry this time. Really. Forgive me?"

Shaking my head in disbelief, I nearly had to laugh at his ignorance. My face must have been a picture. I still didn't turn around, but at least I replied this time. "You've got some fucking nerve. Who do you think you are, exactly?"

He sounded like that wasn't quite the reply he'd expected. "Don't start swearing at me. I apologised, what more do you want?"

"I want you to get out of my face and leave me alone. I have no need for someone who's going to mock me without having any idea how I feel."

"Who says I have no idea?"

"I do, because if you did you'd have known not to laugh. At least not as much."

If nothing else, that shut him up for a minute or two. I was pleased about it. I really was not in the mood for him or any of his jokes, especially under the circumstances. Why he thought it was alright to ridicule someone for something that wasn't their fault, I didn't know. It wasn't even like he had a clean slate, either. He was gay, which hardly qualified him for putting me down when I fancied one bloke. He was the kind of guy who you'd see jumping in front of a bus for fun, the kind who'd dress up as a woman and go out on the pull. Hardly qualified for anything, actually. Especially making fun of people.

Noticing that I'd scratched off the head of one of my stick men, I picked up my pen and began to draw it back on. It was one of the better stick men too; he had a crazy gleam in his eyes and a battle axe in his hand. I imagined what it would be like to be a stick man with a battle axe – no worries, no conscience, no morals, no putting up with Bakura making sarcastic comments. I'd just be able to do what I want, and cut down anyone who disagreed. I grinned a little and felt silly as I realised I was envying a something that I'd carved into a table. I really was pathetic sometimes.

"I do know, you know."

It was a mumble, so I wasn't sure that I'd heard him right. "What?"

"I said I do know how you feel."

I stopped scribbling on my stick men so I could listen properly to the excuse I was sure he would make, but I didn't look at him in case he thought I was taking him seriously.

"It happened to me, once. When I was your age. No one knew I was gay then, and there was this guy I really liked. I didn't tell him for ages, and when I did he laughed and spat in my face. Said I was fag scum."

Tapping my pen on the table lightly, I wondered if he was telling the truth. He sounded sincere, but then he had laughed at me earlier. Why would he have done that if he knew how I'd feel?

"Of course, it's all good now. He went to a different college, and these days no one cares about your sexuality. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt at the time though." There was a pause, and I heard two of his chair legs hit the floor. He must have been balancing on the back legs. "I'm sure you probably don't care, but I just thought I'd tell you. Just so you don't accuse me of something like that again, and so you can stop with your whole 'no one understands me' charade."

It was a short story, but it was also an unexpected one and it caught me off guard. I wasn't sure what he was trying to accomplish, as it must have taken quite a bit of courage to tell me. He couldn't have just been referring to my attitude. But what else could there be? Then again, maybe he just didn't care who knew. Like he said, no one really cares about anyone else's sexual preferences anymore.

Either way, I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt. It didn't sound like the kind of story you'd just make up like that. Fiddling with my pen, I found myself unsure of how to reply. After he'd told me that painful truth it would have seemed more than a little insensitive of me to treat him the same way I had been doing a few minutes prior. But that was how I'd always treated him, which left me in a tricky position.

I stared at my stick men while I thought about what to say. "Did you go back to being friends?"

"No. But after a while it was like he got bored of taunting me and we just stopped talking. His loss."

"Oh."

I didn't know what else to say. It was a tad awkward; he'd managed to turn the tables so that I was the one who didn't understand. I actually felt a bit guilty about saying he didn't know how I felt. He seemed to know how I felt better than I did.

The more I thought about it, the stranger it felt. Because of that story I was far more aware of Bakura's point of view. It wasn't an experience I'd pay money for though, as I wasn't sure I wanted to be able to see where Bakura was coming from. I'd only end up feeling selfish for having my own problems. On the other hand, it helped. Only in a small and not very useful way, but it helped nonetheless. At least he had a decent excuse for some of the ways he treated me.

I drew another stick man. This one was holding a dagger to his own throat. I'd never considered suicide before and I suspected that I never would, but I had thought about what it might be like. How would it feel to know you were dying because of your own hands? What could possibly feel so hopeless that you absolutely have to escape from it? Whatever did, I hoped to never experience it. As I coloured the handle of the dagger, I vaguely wondered whether Bakura had felt like that when the boy had called him scum.

"Hey Ryou?"

I answered absently, still a bit absorbed in thought and leaning on the back two legs of my chair. "What?"

"Do you want to go out with me?"

The shock was so bad that I sat up quickly and caused my chair to topple backwards. I had hit my head on the leg of the table behind me when I fell, so I curled up, half on the floor and half on my chair, clutching my head and moaning in pain. I wished I had heard him wrong, but when there was so little noise in the room and when he had spoken so clearly I knew that it was near to impossible. Go out with him? I hadn't even considered it. He was obnoxious, arrogant and a complete pig; I hadn't missed seeing him devour an entire Swiss roll on his own earlier that week.

"Just because I fancy you, it doesn't mean that I want to go out with you."

I heard a small laugh. I was surprised he'd heard what I'd said, what with me in a ball on the floor. "Oh, go on. We're not so different, you and me. You can always dump me afterwards if you hate me that much. What do you say?"

In a completely uncharacteristic move on my part, I took pity on him. I just couldn't bring myself to say no, mostly because of what the other boy had done to him before me. It seemed too cruel. Besides, he'd just said I could feel free to dump him if I wanted, so where was the harm in it? And I knew him better than that; if I did say no, he'd pester me until I changed my mind. I sighed. "Alright then. Why not?"

"Hooray!"

"Bakura! And Ryou, get up!"

It was the booming voice of the deputy headmaster, so I wasted no time in getting up. Bakura was going to get into trouble anyway; that was his problem. I, however, had no desire for another detention. I just sat and listened as Mr Sir and the deputy head scolded Bakura for yelling obscenities at teachers earlier, and I realised what I had agreed to a moment ago. In fact, it made me feel a bit nauseous. What was I thinking?

I held my head in my hands and stared jealously at my stick men and their stupidly easy lives. I guessed I would just have to sit back and hope for the best.

**Yes? No? Maybe? I'm already well into the next chapter so that shouldn't take so long to get up. Review and I'll love you.**


	11. Beetroot

**Woo! I have such a sore throat. And such sore legs. Too much dancemat, I think. Anyway, here's chapter 11. I would give TK credit, but while I was trying to write she was all like 'get on with chapter 10 instead!' so if anything she's been discouraging me xD Too much sugar. Tired. Don't own. Enjoy.**

SMILE

It was hard at first. For weeks I tried to speak to him as little as possible, which was made difficult when he refused to leave me alone. I was constantly making up excuses to get away from him. It almost made me doubt that I liked him at all, but my doubt was more than made up for on certain occasions; for example, about two weeks after the detention he surprised me by coming up behind me and putting his hands on my waist. It made me blush, and I slapped his away before anyone saw. But in a way it was nice, and it gave me an inward shiver. It was at times like that that I knew I liked him, however much my actions made me doubt it sometimes.

What was harder was keeping our relationship, if you could call it that, from my friends. Especially Malik, not only because he was my best friend but because he wouldn't stop pestering me to tell him why I was acting so funny. Which, for the record, I wasn't. I wanted to tell Yugi too, as it was pretty much his fault anyway. I thought Tea had her suspicions; girls seemed to know these things without anyone having to tell them. I knew I didn't want to tell Joey or Tristan though; they would have completely ripped the piss out of me and I'd never have gotten a break. I had called Duke and told him a couple of days after Bakura and I got together. I had shouted and eventually calmed down, still quite pissed off with him for calling me a raving queer. He had mostly laughed at me and made jokes, but he wished me the best of luck before he hung up.

I lasted without telling them somehow. At least, I lasted until the beginning of December. I think it was because it was a Monday, and I was tired. It was lunch. I was hungry and wanted to go and buy some food, and Malik insisted on accompanying me. He dropped his arm around my shoulders.

"So then, my boy. How's life?"

"It's good. Same as every time you ask."

"Are you keeping a secret from me?"

"No. Same as every time you ask."

He sighed. "Well I'm sorry, but you've been acting weirder than usual for weeks. In fact, you're getting worse every day."

"No one else has told me."

"That doesn't mean it isn't true!"

"I wouldn't put money on it."

"I know you better than the others. I know what I'm talking about."

I shrugged his arm off my shoulders. "Malik, we have this conversation every day. Why haven't you got the point yet?"

He bounced backwards and pointed at me in excitement. "You see? You see that? If you weren't keeping a secret from me, you'd have called me a variety of names and insulted my intelligence in a far classier way than that!"

"I just didn't feel like it today. Is that a problem?"

"Yes. It means I can't prove my superiority with an even wittier retort."

"Ok, fine. You are superior, O Magnificent One. Superior in every way possible." I paused. "Happy now?"

"No!" He leapt in front of me to stop me from walking any further, grabbed me roughly by the shoulders and started shaking me. "Tell me that's the matter!"

I contained my sigh. Clearly my ignorant approach wasn't working. I decided to try a different tactic; laughing it off was probably best, as I could tell he wasn't being completely serious with his shaking. I grinned a bit and shook my head. "There really isn't anything the matter."

"You cannot fool me!"

I looked away while I tried to think of another excuse. Bad move. To him, it simply confirmed that he was right.

"C'mon, just tell me!"

Something in that demand struck a nerve, and I furrowed my eyebrows for a moment. What was it? I thought back and then…oh dear. I remembered this. It was just like the conversation between Bakura and I when we walked out of school. That didn't go well, and likewise I could tell that this with Malik wouldn't go well either. I knew what would happen. He'd provoke me and I wouldn't be able to keep my stupid mouth shut. I wouldn't allow such an incident to happen again; it had to be prevented.

I tried to get past him as quickly as I could, and surprisingly it worked. I wasted no time in running away, but he always had been much better at sports than me. It was easy for him to catch up and tackle me, attaching himself securely to my middle. The prat nearly made me trip over my own feet.

"If you don't tell me right this instant, I'll throw you down the stairs!"

I certainly wasn't going to put it past him, especially since there was a convenient staircase worryingly close to where we were standing. To be blunt, Malik could be a bit of a psycho when he was in the right frame of mind. I wasn't sure whether he was in that particular frame of mind then, but I didn't really want to take the chance. It was a losing battle I was fighting. "Alright, alright. Just let go of me, will you?"

He did, but not completely; one hand was secured firmly around my wrist. When he saw my questioning look, he stated that it was 'just in case I tried to escape'. Yeah, and give him the opportunity to throw me down the stairs? I didn't think so.

Shuffling my feet, I twisted my arm in his grip. "You can't tell anyone though."

He looked disappointed, to say the least. "Not even Joey?"

I snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. Especially not him."

"It's that bad, huh?" He held up his free hand and cleared his throat. "Ok. You have my word. I won't tell another human soul for as long as I live."

"You'd better not."

This was going to be difficult, and had I not just made him promise not to tell anyone, it probably would have resulted in a really loud, unwanted outburst. That was something I really didn't want to happen. There were a number of people in the same corridor as we were, and if he shouted anything at the top of his lungs (as he was prone to doing when something had been kept from him for a while) my little secret would spread like wildfire. It would only be a matter of time before the others knew, and thus it would only be a matter of time before Joey and Tristan condemned me to being the subject of their jokes for at least a month. However, I had told him not to say anything and he'd agreed. He normally kept his word. "I'm going out with Bakura."

"You're going out with Bakura?!"

I knew he'd scream a carbon copy of what I'd said as soon as I saw the shocked look on his face. Knowing there was nothing I could do to stop him was awful; had it really been that unexpected? I had figured that my different behaviour around Bakura would have at least been some sort of indicator, and it should have softened the blow. Clearly not.

"Oh my God!" Malik seemed to be experiencing a mild hysteria. He was jumping about, waving his arms and squealing. As if he hadn't attracted enough attention already, there was now a group of year nine girls standing by the stairs. They didn't seem to realize how obviously they were sniggering at Malik; either that or they didn't care. One of them left the group and started heading down the corridor in the direction of our form room, and I decided that I should try to make Malik shut his face.

"Could you have said that any louder at all? I didn't want anyone to know."

He looked at me like I had just suggested he go swimming in a bird bath. "But it's such big news! I really have to go tell the others!"

And with that he hurried down the corridor. Oh dear; this wasn't going quite as well as I had hoped. Something had to be done. I ran after him and grabbed him by the back of his shirt. "Don't you dare! So much for not telling anyone!"

"I haven't told anyone yet!"

"Yeah, except half the world! You really need to learn to keep your big mouth shut, you know that?"

"Well nobody who matters knows. And since when have you been interested in blokes anyway?"

"Since…that's really not the point."

"When did you two get together then?"

"At the end of October. Why?"

His jaw dropped. "So you've been keeping this from me for over a month? That more than justifies my wanting to tell the others!" He twisted himself free and skipped over to our form room door.

As he pushed the door handle down, his mouth was already open, the words he so desperately wanted to say on the tip of his tongue. In a final and very uncharacteristic move, I ran as fast as I could into him and tackled him to the floor. It hurt quite considerably; I heard a few bones in my body crack from the impact. I was sure Malik had it worse though, what with him taking most of both his fall and mine. His breath had been knocked out of him. It was just as well, really; it meant he couldn't shout anything else. I straddled him and pinned his arms to the floor, leaning on him with all my weight. I had to be sure that he couldn't fight his way back up. "I really can't let you do that."

He managed a breathless sounding laugh. "Careful. Bakura might think you're cheating on him."

I was about to punch him. But as luck would have it, the door opened; I turned my head to see who it was, my fist poised in the air. Tea emerged from the room, looking down at both of us with what appeared to be a mixture of a frown and 'can't you save this for the bedroom?' kind of look. I hated the way the doors had windows in them; it meant everyone could see you if you had no choice but to do what I had just done. Or something similar. Or anything you didn't want people seeing and getting curious about. Malik shoved me off of him, still trying to get his breath back properly.

"What are you two doing?"

I tried to wave her back into the room. "Nothing, it's just Malik being a dick."

I shot him a look of warning, and he shot me a look back – a look I recognized very well. He used it every time he had the opportunity to use it, and quite frankly it made me feel like locking myself in a cupboard. This was because it always resulted in someone, usually me, being made a fool of. I knew what was coming next, and he had looked at Tea before I could do anything to stop him.

"Ryou's going out with Bakura."

"With Bakura?!"

Oh my God. What was it with my friends and being so bloody loud? And she was holding the door to the form room open, which made the situation ten times worse. She had successfully attracted the attention of everyone in the room without even trying. I could feel myself going red, just to put the icing on the cake. My face was going to clash with my hair.

The interest of the others in the room was only too obvious. I could hear them shouting at Tea and asking her 'what about Bakura?', and it was all I could do to bury my face in my hands as she replied 'Ryou's going out with him!' There were gasps and exclamations of surprise before I heard the scraping together of chairs and the unmistakable sound of footsteps rushing closer. Before I knew it they were all crowded around the doorway looking at me in shock.

"You're going out with Bakura?"

"I thought you hated him!"

"Have you had sex yet?"

"He's such a man whore!"

They drove me mad, it was terrible. None of them were observant enough to notice that maybe I wasn't in the mood for their opinions, and they continued to assault me with their comments for quite a while. When I thought my blush had gone down a bit I moved my hands away from my face and turned to glare at Malik, who looked as smug as ever. I'd actually kill him. That bastard. He gave me his word, too. I'd never trust him again in my life.

He could read me like a book. As soon as he became aware of my wanting him to drown, he sat up and grinned at the others who were congregated in front of him, waving at them and whistling to attract their attention. "Yeah, Ryou was just telling me about when he gave Bakura head. Oh, you don't even want to know about the detail he went into!"

Their attention swiftly returned to me and I could feel my blush making an unwelcome return. At least only Joey made a comment ("You horny beast!"), which I supposed was better than being confronted by all of them about it at once. I opened my mouth to start denying and explaining when the worst person who could have possibly shown up at that moment came sauntering down the corridor, looking at us in amusement and curiosity. I prayed they wouldn't notice him, but of course it wasn't meant to be. He made himself known by approaching me and offering me a hand in getting up from the floor. Before I could do or say anything he was attacked much as I had been.

"Are you going out with Ryou?"

"Has he really given you head?"

"You paedophile!"

"I had no idea you two liked each other!"

He didn't laugh at the onslaught, as I had expected him to. In fact, his reaction was far worse. He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked at me. By the time I realized what he was doing, it was too late to stop him. Much like with Malik. The hand on his mouth moved to his forehead, and he closed his eyes. "Oh, it's true! It's all true! I can't stand it any longer! Ryou!"

I was pulled to my feet, despite the fact that I just wanted to ground to open up and swallow me. "Excuse me, but-"

He grabbed my mouth and bent down so his face was level with mine. If I wasn't so absolutely positive that he was pissing about, the sincerity in his eyes might've confused me. "Come on, what have we to hide? We were meant to be! It's not a crime!"

My attempts to protest were cut short when he put his hand behind my head and planted a huge and prolonged kiss on my lips. Yes, I was embarrassed and pissed off and wanted nothing more than to just go home, curl up in bed under my duvet and go to sleep; but kissing him was just so nice. It made me feel sort of fuzzy. He was stroking my hair gently too, and it made me momentarily forget how angry I was at him for telling the others I'd given him head when I blatantly hadn't. His other hand went to my back; I found myself powerless over my own hands, which placed themselves on his waist. And he smelled nice, like shampoo. I didn't for the life of me know how he managed to make it look like he didn't wash his hair.

It all stopped way too soon for my liking. He didn't move away completely, though; his arms stayed around me and he pressed his cheek against mine. Now I was really at a loss for words, if I hadn't been before. He, however, seemed to have plenty to say. He squeezed me; I noticed him give the others, Yami in particular, a look that I couldn't place. Almost predatory.

"How's that for proof?"

**Yay for boykissing! I enjoyed writing this one; I feel like I'm beginning to get somewhere with this fic. I also enjoy reviews.**


	12. Romcom

**I'm really beginning to have to think carefully about how I word things in this. Building the foundations for my planned ending. Getting there, slowly but surely. Credit to TK. I don't own Yugioh. Enjoy.**

SMILE

It was a stupid film; I don't know how he'd managed to talk me into seeing it with him. Some chick flick about a bimbo and a jock. So far, the jock had been a bit of a prick, and the bimbo had been incredibly ignorant of his character, so they were going though a bit of trouble. Oh well. I was sure he would turn over a new leaf and they would live happily ever after at the end of the film.

Bakura was absolutely glued to the screen. I had to admit, I had never imagined him to be one for this kind of film. He'd just seemed like the kind of guy to like humorous, bloody, action films. Something with swords and fights, or something with gore and torture. Maybe even a spaghetti western. But not a high school chick flick. Clearly I had been wrong; he had insisted on taking me to the cinema because there was this 'awesome new film' that he'd wanted to see. When he'd told me what it was, I had refused flat out. I was not going to be seen watching such a film. It took him quite a while of convincing me that no one I knew would be there and that it would make him very happy if I saw it with him before I reluctantly agreed.

It was the Saturday after he'd confirmed to my friends that we were going out. He hadn't apologized, which was something I felt he should have done. Especially with the way some of them reacted. Yugi had been thrilled. A little overly thrilled, but I guessed that was ok. Tea hadn't done much more reacting than what she had done when Malik told her, she just never stopped asking both of us questions. It was quite embarrassing, actually. It was the reactions of Joey and Tristan that I hadn't liked. They had acted exactly the way I had expected them to, except for initially when they both stood there with their mouths hanging open. It took a while, but their simultaneous reaction was the burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. They proceeded to ask us questions even more embarrassing than those that Tea had asked, still laughing and making no effort to hide the fact that they were taking the piss out of us. It hadn't stopped all week; the laughing and the constant teasing. It was getting a bit old, but I supposed I had known they'd react like that.

Bakura leaned forwards in his seat, eyes still focused on the screen. The two main characters were having some sort of petty argument. I didn't understand how he could get so absorbed in this kind of film. It was so unrealistic. In reality guys never made bets about getting a girl to like them or whatever. Girls would not walk into the guys' changing room to confront them about something bad they'd done. They'd wait until break or something. Even if they did, everyone else wouldn't just stand around and watch. They'd laugh, and interrupt, and make jokes until the girl cried and ran off or something. I sat with my arms folded, watching Bakura as he leaned back in his seat again. After all, he was infinitely more interesting to watch than the film.

"I don't know how you can watch this rubbish."

He glanced at me briefly before turning back to his film. "I don't know how you can bad mouth it. It's great."

"It's rubbish."

He absently waved his hand in my face without averting his gaze from the screen. "Shut up, I can't hear what they're saying."

I did shut up, as well as slipping down in my seat and sulking. I couldn't really be arsed to compete with fictional characters on a screen. I didn't really like films at all that much, if I was completely honest. Some were alright, but not many. People just got so into them, like they were really happening, and I thought it was ridiculous. Things like that didn't happen. Surely what was happening in reality was more important than a few events someone had made up and strewn together?

I decided to at least try to pay attention to the film, however stupid it was. I'd paid for it, after all. The cheapskate, after convincing me to see it with him, told me to pay for my own ticket. I didn't really want that six quid to go completely to waste, although I'd much rather have spent it on orange juice or something equally good.

The girl was talking to her friend, and they were making jokes about the jock. How pants. I just couldn't get into it.

Bakura must have noticed me sulking because he dropped his arm around my shoulders. I half tried to shrug it off, but I was inwardly pleased when he didn't budge. I was getting much better recently at just accepting that kind of thing instead of trying to deny it. It was a bit uncomfortable accepting them, but I was sure that I'd get used to it after a while.

Shuffling my feet, I felt a bit defeated when I realized that maybe I needed to lighten up a bit. Bakura wasn't so bad, really. Maybe a bit self centered, and annoying, and up his own arse sometimes. But then he could be really nice sometimes too, and behind his stupidness he had an alright sense of humour. I'd discovered over the last month or so that he wasn't as thick as he presented himself, he just lacked a bit of common sense. Like in that detention, when he distracted the teacher. He didn't actually realize that it would get him into trouble instead.

Either way, perhaps it was about time I stopped being so tense and started being a bit more laid back. I leaned my head back onto Bakura's arm and sighed quietly, trying my hardest to ignore the film.

"Ryou! Hey!"

My eyes widened as I heard the hushed but still unmistakable voice of Yugi, and I rolled my head to see him and Yami walking into the cinema. He looked positively delighted to see us, with a massive grin on his face and giving us a small yet overly enthusiastic wave. I hesitantly waved back, and he made his way over to sit behind us with Yami closely following. Well, now it was going to be difficult to be laid back. I was going to have to practice around Bakura on his own for a while first, before I managed to get it right around my friends too. I noticed Bakura turn around and give Yami a questioning look, which Yami dismissed with a wave of his hand, before both of them turned their attention to the film. I didn't ask what that had been about; knowing Bakura, he'd bring the subject back up as soon as we were out of the cinema.

And he did, making up for the lack of interaction between the four of us during the film. The moment we were out of the door he let out something I could only describe as a noise and, after grabbing my hand, turned straight to Yami. "Usually people start watching films at the beginning."

Mimicking Bakura's move and taking hold of Yugi's hand, Yami turned his nose up in the air. "So what? We'll start watching films whenever we like, it's none of your business."

"Oh, but we all know how you like your chick flicks." Bakura inched closer to Yami and elbowed him in the ribs with his free elbow. "You must've been doing something pretty important, eh?"

Yami swatted at Bakura's elbow. "That's you, Bakura, with the chick flicks. And I just said that our business is our business, not yours."

Grinning, Bakura wrapped his free arm tightly around Yami's shoulders. "C'mon, you can tell me. What were you doing?"

"A bit of everything, if you must know."

Bakura leapt backwards, right onto my foot, and gasped. "You horny beast!"

I wrenched my hand free and slowed down so I could walk behind the bickering pair. Yugi did the same, although the wrenching he did was considerably less violent because no one had just jumped onto his toe. "What's up, Ryou? You're not talking much."

"I don't have much to say. Besides," I nodded towards Bakura and Yami, "even if I did, I wouldn't be able to get a word in edgeways."

Yugi chuckled and stuffed his hands into his pockets. It was a bit cold, I had to say. "Are you two off to anywhere in particular?"

I rubbed my hands together. "Not really. I wouldn't mind thinking of somewhere, though. It's too cold to be wandering aimlessly."

"Yeah. Do you and Bakura want to come to the sandwich bar with Yami and I? Yami isn't in a very good mood today, and Bakura might be able to do him some good."

I couldn't think of any reason why we shouldn't go, so I agreed. It was late afternoon, and I was getting a little hungry. I hadn't been to the sandwich bar for ages, either; it was a dinky little place down some almost unheard of street, but they made the nicest sandwiches ever. Not expensive either.

It soon came to my attention that we were wandering in the completely wrong direction. "Yugi, do you think we should try to herd them," I referred to the pair who had by this time stopped bickering and were now stroking each other, "the right way?"

He stopped, so I stopped, and after the sixth formers realized we were no longer following them they also stopped and turned around. "What're you doing?" Bakura had cupped his hands around his mouth and was shouting. "Some of us are cold!"

I felt much less obliged to shout, so I didn't. "You're the one who insisted on going out in December without a jacket. You don't even know where we're going."

"Where are we going then?"

"This way." Yugi and I began to walk back the way we had just come from, and even from our distance we could hear the other two groaning. It was their own fault; they had no idea where they were going.

Yugi blew a half arsed raspberry. "They give me a headache sometimes."

"Tell me about it."

The colder it got, the faster we walked, and in almost no time at all we were sat around a table in the corner of the sandwich bar stuffing our faces. It was so nice, I'd really forgotten how good these sandwiches were. I had a nice, boring bacon and lettuce sandwich loaded with ketchup. I never got those much at home because I never bothered to buy bacon, which was a shame because they were my favourite sandwiches. Of course, they were even better when I bought them from there, made especially for me.

Bakura and Yami sat opposite Yugi and me, and I had to say that all three of them were eating like pigs, Bakura in particular. It was disgusting, really. His sandwich was about three inches thick from all the meat and sauces he'd asked for, and at the speed he was eating it anyone would think he hadn't eaten for a year. Yami's wasn't quite so huge, but it was still pretty packed with various meat and salad and he was eating at an identical pace to Bakura. Yugi on the other hand had quite an interesting sandwich, containing cheese, pickle and mustard. Not exactly something I'd specifically ask for myself, but Yugi for some reason couldn't get enough of them. It looked nasty to me, and watching him devour it like Joey would when he'd been starved for a week made me feel quite ill. So instead I settled for enjoying my own sandwich.

Bakura opened his mouth to speak, forgetting about the half chewed up sandwich in his mouth. It nearly fell out, and I wrinkled up my nose when he held his hand over his mouth to catch it. It was his own fault for biting off more than he could chew.

I took a smaller bite out of my sandwich and, after swallowing it, turned to Yugi. "You and Yami going out properly yet?"

"Yeah." He nodded, and nearly dropped a piece of cheese before he continued. "No thanks to you. You never did, you know," he nudged me to make sure he knew what I was talking about, and I certainly did – it wasn't something I was going to forget about in a hurry, "do me that favour."

I was about to protest when I realized that he was right. Yes, I had found out that Yami liked him, but I'd never passed the information on. Oh well. That particular decision was what had lead to me sitting here enjoying the nicest sandwich I'd ever eaten, so it can't have been all bad. I gulped down another bite of sandwich.

"Well, you're going out now, so that's all irrelevant."

I finished up my sandwich and licked my fingers clean from ketchup. Did I want another one? No, I decided I didn't. The first one had filled the hole in my stomach perfectly adequately. I leaned back in my chair, shut my eyes and put my hands behind my head, vaguely trying to listen to the soft conversation Bakura and Yami were having opposite us.

"But that's ages!"

"Until New Year then, if you're going to be so picky about it."

I could practically hear Bakura's jaw drop. "But that's even longer!"

"It's only a week."

"But I don't want to be…uh, busy, for Christmas _and_ New Year!"

"My terms."

I opened one eye a crack out of curiosity just in time to see Bakura smack his head on the table, narrowly missing his sauce covered plate. "Your fucking terms…oh, I hate you. You've ruined my life."

Yami grinned, looking really quite malicious. "No. Just your Christmas and your New Year."

"Don't forget my November too!"

Yugi cleared his throat, attracting Yami's attention. Bakura's head stayed on the table. "Sorry to interrupt, but what're you two fighting about now?"

Yami sneered in Bakura's direction. "Don't worry about it. It's just me trying to ruin Bakura's life."

"Oh, that's horrible! I want you to stop it!"

"I will not! It's all in good fun, he knows that."

"He doesn't look like he's having fun!"

"Well he is! Aren't you, Bakura?"

Bakura simply groaned, which made Yami laugh and sent Yugi into a rant about how they were supposed to be friends and how friends didn't ruin each other's lives on purpose. I gazed at Bakura and, after a moment's hesitation, reached out and tentatively stroked his hair. It was soft; he must have washed it that morning before he left to meet me. I think that surprised me, and I gave way to a small smile. He wasn't so bad, really.

**And we come to the end of another chapter! Did we like it? Review?**


	13. Too Easy

**It's only just dawned on me how close my GCSEs are. Bit scary. I ought to start revising really, instead of writing this. But this is just so much fun to write, and I've got other stuff lined up to write too. So no break for me. Ahem, anyway. Credit to TK. I don't own Yugioh (or the show about the meerkats – yes, it does exist). Please enjoy; you have no idea how long it took me to upload this.**

SMILE

My keys kept slipping through my fingers in a highly annoying manner as I tried to pick out the one that went to my front door. I didn't usually have this trouble, especially as all my keys were silver except for the one I was trying to get. There were a lot of keys there, I had to admit – my locker key, a number of old locker keys, a spare key for Dad's car, my house key, a key for my loft and a key for my garage. I didn't even need most of them; I didn't know why I still kept them. I mean, the only reason I had a spare key for the car was because Dad always used to misplace his when he was around. It wasn't just practical to have a spare, it was necessary. Even so, usually it was easy to just pick out the gold key from the bundle, but today I kept either taking the wrong one or grabbing the gold one for a second before letting go of it again. I wasn't entirely sure why I was struggling so much.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Bakura was hovering impatiently behind me, his head craned over my shoulder with an excessive interest in what I was doing. It was off-putting, to tell the truth. He was bouncing up and down on his toes, and it was all I could see out of the corner of my eye however hard I tried to focus my attention on getting the right key. After a second of two he retreated and bounced all over my path instead. I stole a glance at him. He was obviously cold; his posture was stiff and upright, and his hands were fisted in his pockets. The bouncing, I assumed, must have been an attempt at keeping warm. Well, surely I should have been trying to get the door open then instead of staring? I looked back at my keys and tried to get the gold one again, avoiding what could have been quite an embarrassing situation.

"Oh come on, I'm getting old over here."

Bakura's slightly jumpy voice betrayed the fact that he was more cold than bored. If I hadn't been cold myself I'd have stopped what I was going and glared at him to prolong it, but I was cold and therefore I was feeling a bit more merciful. "Alright, alright." I muttered. "Keep your pants on."

I found myself with the gold key between my fingers, and I fiercely shoved it into the lock before I dropped it or swallowed it or something equally unfortunate. Bakura heard the sound of the key turning and bounded up to me, obviously eager to get inside. I wasn't really surprised; it was dark, and it was awfully cold. The minute the door was open he shoved me out of the way and rushed in, which I had to say I didn't find terribly polite.

"You know," I said as I stepped inside, took the key out of the lock and closed the door, "most people wait for their host to step aside and offer them the doorway." I hung up my coat and turned to see Bakura making himself very much at home. His boots were in the middle of the living room floor, and he was sprawled across my sofa, looking around lazily.

"I'm not most people though, am I? I'm your boyfriend, so I get right of way."

"That's the worst argument I've ever heard." I made my way to an armchair and sat down.

"I thought it was pretty good."

"You thought wrong. I could easily say the same thing."

When I didn't get a reply I looked over at him and found that he was just staring at my walls. I wasn't sure why; as far as walls went, mine were pretty boring. There were a few pictures, and few photos and a shelf, but that was it. Bakura seemed focused on the photos. I was about to ask him what he was looking at when his mouth opened. The sound that came out was delayed. "Are you going to offer me a drink?"

I dropped my arms so they hung over the sides of the arm chair. I had only just sat down; he could have asked while I was standing up. "I wasn't planning to. Why don't you just go get one?"

His mouth went into the surprised shape of an 'o', but he didn't look away from the photos. "What a terrible host you are. Because I'm the guest, that's why. You're supposed to wait on me."

"Piss off."

Despite my words and obvious displeasure, it was only moments before I forced myself back up out of the chair. "What do you want?"

"I don't know. Anything." Came the lethargic reply.

I groaned and stumbled into the kitchen. I was tired of him being in my house already. What had possessed me to invite him? In fact, now that I thought about it, did I even invite him? I certainly didn't remember doing such a thing, and it wouldn't have surprised me if he'd invited himself. The more I thought about it, the better I remembered Bakura telling me that he was coming back to my house. Although I suspected that I might have been making it up, it was a nicer explanation than that of me inviting him over. It made me feel better.

"Hey Ryou?"

I grumbled in response and searched the fridge for cans of coke.

"Who's that in that picture?"

"In what picture?"

"The one above the one of you wearing braces."

"Hang on." I moved a number of items, wondering where the coke had got to. I could have sworn it was in the fridge last time I checked, but I could have been wrong.

The sound of a football match on the TV wafted into the kitchen, followed by a scream and the channel being changed to a documentary of some sort. It appeared that my boyfriend shared my views on the sport. It was something I'd never thought to ask him about. Glancing in the direction of the doorway that joined the two rooms, I noticed a few cans on the floor. How had they gotten there? I shut the fridge and wandered back into the living room, picking up two of the cans as I went. One of them I threw in Bakura's general direction, and the other I took with me back to my chair.

"Which picture?"

"What?" Bakura didn't seem to have any idea what I was talking about for a moment. He had been taken in by the meerkat documentary on the TV and had almost forgotten the question he had asked. "Oh. That one."

I followed his hand. "The one of four people?"

He nodded, and I raised an eyebrow. How could he not realise that was my family? All of us, spare my Dad, had shiny white hair. "That's me, my father, my mother and my sister."

He looked at me with an amused expression. "I didn't know you had a sister."

Picking at my can, I avoided his gaze. "I don't."

"But you just-"

"She's dead."

He got the point. Only a real idiot would have kept talking.

"So is my mother, before you say anything about her." I opened my coke and tipped it up into my mouth. The brief silence that followed was a little uneasy; he seemed genuinely at a loss for what to say, which was a rare but pleasant occurrence. To tell the truth, I wasn't really that bothered about him bringing it up. I supposed everyone died sooner or later. Even if it had been before their time, it had happened and that was that. I tried to watch the documentary, but Bakura was tapping on his coke can and distracting me. It was obvious he was uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry. Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really. It was years ago and I'm quite over it."

"Oh. Alright."

I leaned back in my chair. This show was pretty stupid; it was more like a soap than a documentary. The meerkats had been named, and there was a narrator telling the story. I guessed it was better than if they'd dubbed over some voices with cheesy, melodramatic lines. Keeping half an eye on Bakura, I watched the show with a vague interest.

"_While Flower is off hunting and foraging for food, young Clyde_ _has decided to amuse himself with the local wildlife. The turtle is less amused."_

Bakura snorted. "But the meerkats _are_ the local wildlife!"

"So?" I finished my coke and balanced the empty can on the arm of my chair.

"So, it's stupid. I hate this show. Why are we watching it?"

"You're the one who put it on!"

"Change it! Change it now!" He was kicking up quite a fuss on my sofa. Had it been someone else's house I'd have thrown something at him to make him shut up, but it was my house and I prided myself on keeping it tidy.

"You've got the remote!"

After a quick scan of his immediate surroundings he discovered that he did indeed have the remote, and he wasted no time in shutting the TV off. I looked over at him as he leaned back off the sofa and put both his can and the remote on a small table behind him.

I decided not to question him. I wasn't really in the mood for TV anyway.

"Come here."

I saw him looking at me with his arms stretched out towards me. It was a little suspicious, to say the least. "Why?"

He raised his arms a bit in an inviting gesture. "Just come here."

My instincts told me to stay exactly where I was. Who knew what he might have been plotting? Then I thought about it, and realised how ridiculous it sounded. He was my…boyfriend. However difficult it was to say or think. I was supposed to trust my boyfriend. But then, this was Bakura. He had never really been trustworthy, and was always giving me reason to worry, right?

I had to blink a couple of times when I realised that Bakura had never actually done anything which should mean I shouldn't trust him. Apart from being immature, stupid and a complete prick. But those were personality flaws, not something he'd done that I should hold against him.

Either way, my better judgement was telling me not to get up. This was the reason why I was so disappointed in myself when I found that I was moving over to him. When I got close enough he locked his arms around me and pulled me down so I was sitting on him.

It was an awkward position. He was still spread out completely and I was half sitting on his stomach, half falling on to the floor. The only thing keeping me from falling down was his arms. I must have looked so panicky; I didn't know what to do. Well, after a few moments my back began to hurt from our odd position and I tried to wriggle into something slightly more comfortable.

He must have misunderstood my movement as an escape attempt, and this resulted in his arms getting tighter so I couldn't move.

"It's a hug, you idiot." I felt him rub his face against my side. "It's supposed to be pleasant."

I didn't like his patronising tone, and wriggled again only this time with more force. "I know that; this hurts, that's all. And I'm not an idiot."

He loosened his grip and let me stand up. There had been few times when I had been so pleased to be standing up straight. It didn't last though. These things never seemed to last as long as I'd have liked. Before I knew what was happening, Bakura had hoisted himself so he was sitting upright and pulled me back down again, only this time into a more comfortable position sitting on his lap. Well, physically comfortable. It would have been a lie to say I was mentally comfortable with the arrangement. It clearly showed, and he hugged me tighter.

"You're really tense. Loosen up a bit."

"I'm not tense." I knew denying it was a lost cause, but it was like an automatic reaction. I couldn't help it.

"You are. I won't bite, you know. At least try to relax? I mean…" He broke off, and I took it as my cue to relax.

It was awfully difficult to relax while I was sitting on his lap with his arms around me. Not because it felt wrong or anything. In fact, it felt pretty nice and sort of calming. Like I was safe from everything, and nothing could hurt me. I could almost compare it to something like cotton wool, or bubble wrap. They both protected things after all, and the feeling I got when I was in Bakura's arms made me feel like he'd protect me in exactly the same way.

It was just that I couldn't get used to all the physical contact that came with a relationship. It was difficult.

"…how long have we been together now? About a month and a half. And I still can't so much as hold your hand without you leaping away like I've jabbed you with a cattle prod."

I couldn't pay attention to what he was saying. It was taking all my concentration to relax even the slightest bit. The sad thing was that it shouldn't have taken any concentration at all. Relaxation is supposed to be free of effort. It's supposed to just let you go with the flow and not have a care in the world. I thought of the rich folk who went swanning off to spas and the like every week, and found myself envying every last one of them. How come they could relax with such ease while I was going to end up dead from trying?

"I know you're not the biggest social butterfly in the world, but it still upsets me when you act like you won't touch me with a ten foot barge pole. I don't know why you do it, whether it's because you don't want people laughing at you or whatever, but I swear to God I'm going to fix it. Believe me, our relationship is going to be so much better when you're not afraid of touching me."

Maybe I was trying too hard? That must have been it. I had already established that normal people didn't have to try when they relaxed. They just got on with it. I needed to be more carefree. I needed to be able to wake up in the morning, full of energy and singing with the birds. Stress had to be to blame; it usually was. That was the key. I needed to be free of stress if I was ever to relax. I imagined myself putting all my problems into a jar, and then throwing the jar out of a thirteenth floor window. Then, in a parallel universe, I'd fill the rest of the jar up with petrol and burn the jar. In another parallel universe I was putting the jar into an airtight safe, surrounded by mines ready to go off and snipers keeping an eye on it. The joy of having no worries would be mine, and I'd be able to express myself in a relaxed state of mind.

Then Bakura's hands were under my shirt, rubbing my skin, and the first jar came flying back through the window. The fire in the second jar went out. The safe, the snipers and the mines all disappeared. If I had managed to relax at all, all my effort had just been undone. If anything I was tenser than I started off, but I tried with everything I had not to try and get away. Even thought I hadn't really been listening properly to Bakura, I had heard enough to know that running away was exactly what he was trying to get me to stop doing. I supposed I had to appreciate his effort. I was aware that a lot of people would just get up and find someone new instead of going through the hassle of something like this. That made Bakura the minority.

I tried not to think; I figured maybe that would help me relax. To my surprise, it worked to a certain degree. When I wasn't thinking about anything else, I could focus on the feeling on his hands and I found that it was surprisingly soothing, like a massage. I closed my eyes and leaned back onto him. I didn't mind his hands being under my shirt, I guessed, as long as it stayed soothing. I was pretty sure he wouldn't try to go too far anyway; he ought to know that, if he did, I'd never let him come near me again.

His breath was warm and it tickled my ear. "Is that nice, hun?"

I moaned and nodded instead of composing a reply with words. I just couldn't be bothered with speaking. I couldn't be bothered with anything. Was this what relaxation felt like? If so, I had decided already that I liked it. Bakura laughed softly in my ear. "Good. I'm going to relax you, and I'm going to cure this silly fear of yours too. By the time I'm finished, you'll be begging me to touch you."

**Whey! I'm getting there! But I wouldn't be able to do it without the support of my faithful readers. I love you all. Make me happy and review?**


	14. Early Bird

**I felt like I'd been abandoning this a bit. Woe is me. GCSEs in less than nine weeks. I don't know why I'm worrying; I did fine in the mocks and I didn't even revise. Anyway. TK thought Ryou needed a bit of a break, thus this chapter came into existence. Well, it's not actually much of a break, but it'll have to do. So yeah, let's get on with the show, shall we? I don't own Yugioh, enjoy.**

SMILE

I woke up to one of the most hideous sounds I'd ever heard. It was horrible, like a one legged seagull with its head in a vice whose wife had just run off with an albatross. I'd always hated being woken up by noise, especially in the summer when it got light at four in the morning and the birds would be singing as loudly as possible outside my window. It was just as well that my dad was hardly ever home. He'd always had a habit of getting up during the small hours and belching dreadfully. It was the most disgusting thing to be woken up to, and it had made me feel quite sick when I was younger.

I soon became aware of the unusual position I was in, lying on the sofa with my feet resting on the wall behind and my head bent on the floor.

"What the hell…?"

It was going to be uncomfortable when I tried to move, that was for sure. I wondered how long I'd been asleep for. Judging by the light, or lack thereof, coming through the window because I had obviously forgotten to close the curtains, it was either the middle of the night or the very early hours of the morning. At least it was only Sunday so I didn't have to go to school or anything later.

Then the fact that it was Sunday sank in properly. My eyes snapped wide open as I searched angrily for the intrusive noise that had woken me up in the first place, ready to angrily scold whoever was behind it for wrecking one of the few lie-ins I had the opportunity to have. It didn't surprise me when I saw Bakura sitting in the middle of my living room floor making the awful squawking sound. At least, it didn't surprise me when I remembered that he had been here all night. What did surprise me though (well, 'surprise' was the wrong word; more like 'confuse') was the fact that he'd managed to get his hands on my penknife from somewhere, and from what I could see from my upside down view, he was trying to carve lumps of his skin out with it. Reluctantly, because I knew it would hurt, I rolled off my sofa and sat up on the floor beside him. And it did hurt; it ached quite a lot, actually. Rubbing my neck and cracking it slowly, I made a mental note never to sleep in a position like that again.

"Shut up. What're you doing?" My voice was scratchy. It usually was when I didn't get enough sleep at a time. I was still a bit groggy too, so I supposed that accounted for some of it. Oh well. When I was awake properly, I'd give him a piece of my mind.

He did stop his squawking and squealing, but apart from that he didn't seem to have heard me. I watched as he rolled up his sleeve and stabbed himself in the upper arm with my knife. It was weird enough like that. I wasn't just going to sit around and watch as he tried to move the knife to cut out a circle. It was a bit much. Besides, he was going to get blood all over my carpet. I couldn't have that. I'd have to spend ages cleaning it.

I held my hand out and he just looked at it, not getting the hint. I sighed. "Give me my knife."

He gestured towards the wound in his arm. "But I'm using it."

"You shouldn't stab yourself, you know. Might get infected or something." I didn't move my hand, and he eventually but sulkily placed the knife on it.

"Killjoy."

"I'm not a killjoy, you're just weird. If you want to go cut out your skin do it over someone else's carpet and use someone else's knife. Look, you've got loads of blood on mine. It's gross." I wiped the knife on my jeans and, after folding it back up, put it in my pocket. "Besides, it's sharpened. You might hit a bone or something without meaning to."

He was still sulking. "I'm not that stupid."

"I wouldn't put it past you."

It was way too early to be awake and having a conversation. I couldn't focus on anything much because I wanted so badly to be asleep. I wanted to sleep until mid-afternoon, and get up in a pleasant, sleepy haze and lounge around the house for the remainder of the day.

Unfortunately, I didn't think Bakura would make it possible for me to do that. It wasn't fair.

I noticed blood seeping through Bakura's sleeve which had rolled back down over his wound, and decided that I ought to do something about it before it got infected and he tried to sue me about it or something equally ridiculous.

A stupidly huge amount of effort went into getting up. It wasn't a hard thing to do; it was just difficult when you wanted to fall asleep. I stumbled into my kitchen and rummaged around blindly inside the medicine cupboard.

"You seem tired." Bakura's voice floated in. I tried to resist the urge to be childish and say 'well, duh'.

"It's dark, therefore I shouldn't be awake. If it hadn't been for you making such a racket I'd still be asleep now."

He didn't answer, and I reached deeper into the cupboard. Where on earth were the plasters? Standing on my tiptoes and stretching as far as I possibly could was so not what I wanted to be doing right then. "Do you mutilate yourself regularly, or was this a whim?"

"Eh, a bit of both. I do it every so often, but it's always just on a whim. I don't think about it."

I shook my head and swept some empty paracetamol boxes off the shelf. I really needed to get this cupboard sorted out. After a bit more searching I came across a pile of plasters and, after pulling them out, took them back into the living room. I also took a clean tea towel, as I didn't particularly want to be touching his blood.

He eyed me with suspicion as I sat beside him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to make sure that that cut of yours doesn't get infected. Turn around so I can get to your arm."

He rolled his eyes but turned nonetheless. "They haven't got infected before."

"Yeah, but if this one does you'll go blaming me."

"You're a paranoid little git, aren't you?" He sniggered.

"Fuck you." It was too early to be arguing. I peeled back his sleeve, wrinkling up my nose when I saw that the sleeve in question had smeared his blood all over his arm. It was nasty. I dabbed the worst of it away with the tea towel before carefully dabbing at the cut. Something I didn't want to be doing was changing a plaster soaked in blood, so I tried as best I could to get rid of all the excess. "How could that not hurt?"

He looked at his injury fondly, almost like he was looking at a loved one. "I'm not sure. It just doesn't. Or maybe it does, and I just don't feel it. Maybe the rush from the blood cancels it out? I don't know. Either way, it's a good thing. I'd hate to feel pain easily."

When I felt that I had cleaned up the wound to the best of my ability I took the largest plaster I could find out of the pile I had brought with me. As I opened it I heard Bakura laugh. "You're gonna put a plaster on a stab wound? You crank."

"What?"

"You're the only person I know who'd do that, except maybe Marik. Most people would use a bandage or something."

"Yeah, well. It's the middle of the night or morning or whatever, so you should be grateful that I'm making the effort at all." I carefully peeled the plaster off its protective paper and stuck it over Bakura's arm. "There."

He promptly started hitting it.

"What do you think you're doing? You're going to pull the plaster off, and if you do you won't get another one."

He stopped hitting it, but looked like he desperately wanted to. "You really do ruin all my fun. I was only making sure it'd stick."

"Of course it's going to stick. That's what it's designed for, moron."

"The cheap, shitty ones don't."

"Just as well these aren't cheap, shitty ones then, isn't it?"

I gathered up the rest of the plasters, picked up the bloody tea towel with my finger tips and took it all back into the kitchen. The tea towel went straight into the washing machine, and the plasters were thrown in the general direction of the medicine cupboard. I'd put them away properly later when I was awake. I still couldn't get my head around the fact that I was awake. Before I went back to Bakura, I glanced up at the clock on the wall.

Two thirty.

Two fucking thirty in the fucking morning.

That guy had a lot to answer for.

"It's half two!" I really felt the need to shout it to him. Even thought it was dark outside and I was groggy with the lack of sleep, I guessed there had still been a vague glimmer of hope in me that it might have been later than it looked. Like it sometimes was in winter, where you could sleep in for as long as you wanted and it'd still be dark when got up. Today that had not been the case, and I was not pleased about it at all.

"What?"

I wandered back into the living room, wanting to erupt in a fearful rage but too sluggish to bother. "You woke me up. Unnecessarily. At half two in the morning."

He looked up at me, expecting me to continue. I don't think he quite saw what my point was. I flopped down on the sofa and cracked my neck again. "Too early."

My neck was beginning to ache really badly. Sleeping even slightly funny was a bad idea, I knew, but upside down hanging off a sofa with your head bent on the floor was just plain stupid. How had I managed to get like that anyway? I hadn't even got changed or anything, which meant that my clothes would now smell. Great. Even more washing to do.

Bakura hoisted himself up from the floor and sat himself next to me. "I thought we'd already discussed the earliness thing?" His hand snaked up my back and started to rub my neck gently, making it feel a little bit better almost straight away. "Besides, it's not really important. You've got your whole life to sleep. But you haven't got your whole life to see me."

I peered over at him. "What do you mean?"

"Well…" he fidgeted, "you just haven't, have you? I mean, you never know what might happen."

"…like an assassination attempt?"

"Uh…sort of, yes."

I laughed softly. "Sorry to burst your bubble there, but I don't think either of us are threatening enough or important enough to be assassinated."

"But still. I wasn't talking only about being assassinated."

"What then?"

"…well, I'm in my last year, aren't I? So I'll be leaving school soon. You probably won't see me then."

I waved my hand at him absently, far too busy enjoying him healing my sore neck. "Pish posh. I'm seeing you now and we're not at school. It's not like school's the only place where people see each other, is it?"

"I guess not…"

Slowly so as not to make him move his hand from my neck, I leaned onto his shoulder. "We can meet up out of school as much as we want, it's not a problem. If you're that worried about it, we can meet up every weekend. I don't have anything else to be doing." I made my head comfortable, prepared to fall asleep. "Besides, it's only December. You don't leave until June. We've got months to think about it."

"Yeah…"

He seemed awfully thoughtful, and had I not been under his magic touch I'd probably have asked him what was on his mind. My neck was, by this time, feeling much better. I myself was feeling better too, but in a relaxed and content way. When I had woken up my movements had been jerky and I had found it difficult to move without putting a lot of effort into it. Now I felt like I could just float off somewhere, weightlessly and peacefully. It was a wonderful thought, and brought me one step closer to sleep.

Sleep. That was what I wanted. I wanted to be in a dreamland where nothing was real, where I could do what I pleased without fear of the consequences. In a dream, things felt real when they didn't exist. Things were forgotten as soon as they had happened, and even the most irrational details made perfect sense. If I was honest though, I felt like I was already there. Safe in my living room next to Bakura while he stopped my neck aching. It was something which I wouldn't have been able to comprehend if I had been in a decent state of consciousness, and an idea that I didn't dare dwell on. Instead I let myself sleep, wondering if I'd remember this in the real morning.

**I must apologise. Firstly because that was a bit weird (xD) and secondly because I believe I said Malik and the others would be making a reappearance in this chapter. I guess I lied. So I'm very sorry, but I absolutely promise they'll be back next chapter. I've nearly finished the ending to this fic too! I can't wait until I can post it. I love everyone who reviews.**


	15. Air

**Right, to hell with Ryou's break; it's time to get serious. I'm trying to get this fic wrapped up now. The ending's nearly done, and I've just started another fic. Which I shouldn't have done, because it's just going to slow everything down. Exams are still creeping up too. I actually cannot wait until they're over. I wonder if the end of compulsory education is all it cracks up to be? I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

"Oh Ryou, what a horny little slut you are!"

"Stop calling me horny!"

Malik flicked me in the side of the head and tittered away to himself, while my scowl deepened. It was another Monday that had so far consisted solely of relentless abuse and misfortune, and I could think of nothing I wanted more at that moment than to punch someone in the face. Malik was rapidly becoming the favourite candidate. He stretched his arms out in front of him and wiggled his fingers; I suspected that he was trying to annoy me on purpose.

"Alright…you're a _randy_ little slut."

"I am not randy!" The boy seemed absolutely convinced that I had been pestering Bakura for sexual favours. Sometimes, I wondered why he was my best friend at all. Best friends were supposed to know whether you were one of those people who thought of nothing but sex. "And I'm not a slut either," I felt the need to add, "I don't sleep around."

He flicked me again, so I threw my book at him. We were in an English lesson, supposed to be analysing and writing about poetry, but it was obvious that almost no one was doing it. In fact, the class was pretty much in an uproar due to the teacher leaving the room for a few minutes. A group of girls next to us were being particularly rowdy; they were together writing and reading aloud short stories involving, amongst other things, necrophilia, homosexuality and murder. They were the kind of people you were embarrassed to have as classmates, really.

Still, I supposed it wasn't just them making all the noise, even if they were being the loudest. A couple of guys on the other side of the room were squealing at the top of their lungs, while a crowd of people were laughing and pissing about with a bottle of water and the contents of their pencil cases. The kinds of things that I couldn't understand why were funny.

Nonetheless, the noise the rest of the class was making surpassed the noise Malik and I were making. Which was good. I didn't want the rest of the world knowing my business, especially when it wasn't true. I wasn't horny, and I had definitely not been demanding sex from anyone. Bakura and I hadn't done anything in the least bit sexual the weekend prior; all that had happened was that I had learned that he was exceptionally good at massaging, and that he liked to carve into his skin sometimes.

Actually, now that I thought about it, that incident had been a bit weirder than I first perceived it to be. I guessed it was because I had been half asleep at the time so what he was doing to himself hadn't really sunk in. But now it seemed really strange. He'd just been mutilating himself out of the blue in my house. It wasn't exactly something people did to make a good impression.

I was literally knocked back into the present when my book hit me repeatedly in the face. It came as quite a shock to my system, and it took me a few moments to come to my senses enough to wrench my book violently out of Malik's hands, almost managing to smack the girl sitting behind me. I quickly apologised to her and set the book down on the table.

"Malik…" I began, "Do you enjoy it or something when I wish you were dead?"

He shrugged and balanced on the back legs of his chair. "Makes it all more fun, don't you think?"

I, personally, didn't agree. I'd rather Malik didn't death wish me. Then again, his opinions always had been a little warped. That was why I became his friend in the first place. Because he wasn't just another sheep. He refused to conform to anything, even if it was a concept he liked. He'd go against it just to be difficult. For example, if it ever became the 'in thing' to wear clothes (something which was commonly done anyway), Malik would be found wandering the streets completely stark naked. He didn't care about anything as long as he wasn't following the norm. The only exception to this unwritten rule of his was the school uniform; he'd decided in the first year that it wasn't really worth the hassle to not wear it at all, so he settled for pimping it up with button badges and the like.

"Either way, you should know better than anyone how permanently I'm sexually turned off."

He laughed. "I'm sure Bakura knows it better than I do."

I scowled again. I was probably going to have wrinkles by the time I was twenty, if the amount of frowning I had been doing recently was anything to go by. "What're you trying to imply?"

"That he's not getting any!" My friend, unworthy as he was right then of the name, looked at me. "That's what you're implying too. Don't go getting all mouthy at me."

That was the only worse thing about Malik than his ability to piss me off without trying; the fact that he was always right. It could be a good thing sometimes, I supposed. People tended to assume he was thick because he pissed about a lot and hardly ever finished any work, but in reality he was one of the smartest people I knew. Those who underestimated him often found themselves backed into rather embarrassing corners.

We were silent for a while after that. Well, I was silent and sat still. He, on the other hand, couldn't seem to go five seconds without fidgeting or getting up or making some kind of noise. His current occupation was swinging back and forth on his chair; I watched as with each swing his head came dangerously close to the book shelf behind him, and couldn't help but half-heartedly hope that he hit it. It'd give me an excuse to laugh at him, and I so rarely had an opportunity to be or act superior to him. It was something I liked to enjoy whenever I could.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Soon he stopped swinging without hitting his head and began instead to rip tiny pieces of paper out of his book, screw them up and throw them at various people on the other side of the room. I considered briefly, since he was busy, doing some of the work I was supposed to be doing. Then I remembered how boring the work was, and how I wanted to put it off for as long as possible. So I poked Malik in the side, not to get his attention but for something to do.

"Hm?"

"Nothing."

"Oh, quit sulking." He threw one of his paper balls at me. "Bakura doesn't seem like the kind of guy to rush that sort of thing anyway. He's too…I don't know. 'Nice' is the wrong word, but you know what I mean right?"

"Yeah. I guess."

"Besides," he continued, "if he tries anything, you can always dump him or beat him up or something, can't you?"

I laughed. "Not all of us are extreme enough to beat someone up over something so petty."

"You never know. He had quite a bruise after that time he slapped you on the arse."

"He surprised me!" I protested. "It was really early in the morning and I didn't know it was him. I thought it was some old paedophile or something. Of course I was going to react violently."

"It was a bit extreme, if you ask me."

"Well it's a good thing no one asked you then, isn't it?"

He grinned in reply as the bell rang, signalling the beginning of lunch. It was such a relief to be out of that rowdy classroom; in fact almost as soon as I got out of the door my desire to punch Malik began to fade away. It was remarkable what getting into a slightly more airy space could do for you. I looked forward to getting to the form room. The windows were permanently open, so it'd be even airier in there, albeit a little chilly.

Malik couldn't even allow me this one simple luxury. He insisted on making pit-stops after every few steps we took. First he decided he wanted to wait for some guys in the classroom next to ours, and wouldn't let me go ahead. These guys took a good five minutes to get out, which was enough of a pain. Malik then delayed the stop longer to hug each of them and invite them to a Christmas party he'd been wanting to host. It took forever, but eventually we could keep moving.

Then we had to stop at the Languages Department so he could ask for an extension on his Spanish coursework. This heated confrontation between him and the teacher lasted several minutes before the teacher finally gave in and let him have two more days.

He then dragged me to our shared locker, which we stopped at while he swapped over a few books. He was taking so long, I was almost convinced that he was doing it on purpose just to stop me getting any air. Deep down, he was cruel, malicious and sadistic; I was his guinea pig. I paced around.

"Can't you hurry up?"

"I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying." He was blatantly not hurrying at all. "In a rush to see Bakura, are we?"

"No!"

As a matter of fact, I didn't want to run into Bakura today, especially if Malik was around. He'd start prancing about, joyfully lying about what I'd said in the English lesson in a way which meant I wouldn't be able to deny it without seeming guilty. He'd tell Bakura that I had been complaining about the lack of sex I was getting and he'd mention a few vulgar sexual acts that I had mentioned in particular. I'd end up lost for words because Malik was far better at lying than I was at telling the truth, and Bakura would take it all in and believe it. I supposed an upside was that Bakura would be the only one to believe it; the others knew that Malik liked to get people into trouble with his lies, so if they overheard they'd know I was innocent.

Even if Malik wasn't there, things would be awkward. I had been feeling progressively more uncomfortable whenever I thought about Saturday night and how Bakura had been carving into himself. While I was pacing I wondered whether I should bring it up with him; he hadn't been in the form room at break so I hadn't had an opportunity to see how he was acting. Maybe it had just been nothing? After all, at the time he hadn't seemed like he was in much of a state. He was just talking to me normally. I decided I wouldn't ask about it. I didn't want to pester him.

Malik finished up with his locker and finally we made it to the form room. It was already full of people, Bakura being one of them. I dumped my bag down and, ignoring him, sat beside Tea. He was talking to Yami anyway.

"Where've you two been?" Tea turned to me, gesturing at Malik.

I cracked my knuckles, making her cringe. "He dragged me absolutely everywhere else before letting me come here. He's having one of his inconsiderate days."

"Inconsiderate?" A puzzled look crossed her face before it was replaced with an expression of understanding. "Oh. You were eager to see Bakura."

I hung my head. "Why does everyone keep assuming that I'm always desperate to be around him?"

"Well you _are_ going out." She said it as if I was thick.

"I know, but we're not joined at the hip. I can function without being with him for every second of the day."

"Sorry, Ryou. It's just that usually people want to be around their lovers."

"Not if they're abusive."

"Bakura's not abusive, is he?"

I paused. "Not in so many words, no."

Tea laughed, and I sighed in defeat. "Why don't you just admit that you like seeing him?"

"Why should I?"

"Because it's true. Right? You do like seeing him."

"Who cares whether I like seeing him or not?"

"Oh, come on. I want to know!"

"It's none of your business."

I got up again and went to my bag, intending to have some lunch. I hated it when people put me into those kinds of situations. I was completely hopeless at getting out of them.

I could hear her commenting to Yugi amusedly about how cranky I was today. I guessed I was a little grumpy, but who could blame me? My best friend had kept me away from breathable air for as long as he possibly could, and everyone had leapt to the conclusion that I couldn't stand being away from Bakura. I thought I had good reason to be cranky. Besides, I hadn't slept as much as I'd have liked to the night before.

What was worse, though, was that I was pretty mad at myself yet again. I was in denial, I knew I was. I had just tried to tell Tea that I wouldn't be bothered if I didn't see Bakura, but I knew that'd be lying. Of course I'd be bothered; I hadn't had the embarrassing confrontation that started this whole affair for nothing. I didn't fancy him for no reason either; he was pleasant enough company for me to want to be with him.

He was nice to listen to as well. Not because of what he said, but because of what his voice sounded like. I was spending an awfully long time getting my lunch out of my bag because I could hear Bakura talking to Yami behind me, and I wanted to listen to his voice without anyone knowing I was doing it. He had a deep voice with a pleasing accent, so as long as I wasn't listening to what he was saying I could enjoy it.

I was picking up parts of their conversation though. They were talking about someone. I wondered who it was, and as my curiosity got the better of me I began to pay attention to what they were saying.

"You're doing a bad job of keeping him on a leash. He's just going to wander off if you're not careful." That was Yami's voice. I furrowed my eyebrows slightly, wondering why he sounded as hushed as he did. Maybe they were talking about some secret stuff that they didn't want anyone to hear about? If that was the case, I knew I should have stopped listening then, but I was too curious to stop. As long as they didn't know, what harm could it do? I listened for Bakura's reply.

"You worry too much. I'm being far more careful about this than you give me credit for." Bakura's voice was hushed too, but less than Yami's had been. It sounded nice hushed.

"Worry? Hah! Why on earth would I be worried? I'm glad you're doing so badly. You watch, by the New Year I'll be a rich man!"

"My arse, you will be! If anyone's going to be a rich man, it's going to be me."

"Last time you said that, I was the one walking away with the cash."

"Not this time. You'll see; I've got him wrapped around my little finger and he doesn't suspect a thing."

I'm not sure whether it was the subject they were discussing or purely the amount of cockiness that radiated from Bakura's voice that did it. I knew one thing though – if the 'he' they were referring to was me, I was certainly suspicious now.

Of course, it probably wasn't me they were talking about. I wasn't the only male they knew, and I reckoned that if I was 'wrapped around his little finger' as Bakura put it, it'd be obvious enough to notice. But from that moment on, I couldn't help but be wary of the two of them. I mean, I was going out with Bakura. What if he had been lying to me this whole time? Or, on the other hand, what if they were talking about one of my friends? I was particularly worried about Yugi too, as well as myself.

I wondered what to do. I knew that I needed to ask Bakura about it, if only for him to reassure and slap some sense into me. But I shouldn't have been listening in the first place, and I didn't want to hurt him by implying that I didn't trust him. That left me with a problem – what if they _were_ talking about me? I'd have bloody good reason not to trust him, and if that was the case I wanted to know about it before anything drastic happened.

I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't want myself or any of my friends to get hurt, but I didn't want to hurt Bakura by trying to prevent it. It was a conundrum that I probably wouldn't be able to sort out until I'd had a good sleep. So for the time being I settled with eating my lunch in silence, not listening to the rest of their conversation.

**Gosh, that was so much work. Shouldn't be too much longer now; I might even get another chapter up before the end of the Easter holidays. I love everyone who reviews.**


	16. Benefit of the Doubt

**Really wanting to get this done.** **I'm so close. And I've got all death scenes from Battle** **Royale in my head (specially the ones involving Kiriyama…drool). An awesome movie which I don't own and that I highly recommend. Anyway. This is Yugioh (which I also don't own), not Battle Royale. On with the show.**

SMILE

I had paced around my house for quite a while that evening. I had drunk at least a carton of orange juice, and hadn't been able to sit still for more than five minutes at a time without fidgeting or getting up again. At one stage I was so restless that I repeatedly ran up my stairs and slid down the banister. It got awfully tedious after a while but at least it got all the movement out of my system. When I eventually ran out of energy and felt like my legs were going to give way beneath me, I dragged myself to bed and had a much needed sleep. Then, for the rest of the week, I contented myself with ignoring Bakura.

What he had been saying with Yami had really got to me; I didn't know what to think. I did know, however, that if I tried to speak to him I'd end up throwing a hissy fit and telling him I'd been eavesdropping, which was something I wasn't sure if I wanted to do yet. I was going to have to confront him about it eventually, but right before the Christmas holidays wasn't such a good time.

There was half a day left of term, and half a day left of avoiding Bakura. So far it had been working well, but not for lack of trying on Bakura's part. He seemed so clingy, although it may have been because I was trying to stay away from him. People always seemed clingy when you didn't want them around. But…I didn't know what it was. He wouldn't leave me alone. He was constantly trying to talk to me, asking if I was alright and what I had been doing. He had also been trying to get me to go out with him to various places during the holidays; I had bluntly refused all of these invitations.

Now lunch was nearly over, and Bakura was still attached to my hip. His arms were wrapped around my neck and he was nattering away into my ear. I was trying desperately to pretend he wasn't there.

"Alright, so you don't like that idea. What about a theme park or something? Everyone loves those. Oh wait, hang on, none of those will be open at this time of year. Hmm…I know! We could go to the cinema! That was fun last time, and there are loads of good films on at the moment."

He paused briefly, waiting for a reply, but carried on when he never got one.

"I guess we've been to the cinema too recently to go again. Where else is there to go? I haven't been out for a meal in a while, now that I think about it; we could do that! …No? Ok, that's cool. Oh! How about we go to the zoo? I've been dead set on seeing a real life puma for ages!"

As he rattled off different places for dates, I tried to pay attention to others around the room instead. Unfortunately, most of them were being very boring. Tea was just sitting listening to music, Yami and Yugi were chatting and Joey and Tristan were playing hangman. I then glanced at Malik, who was holding out his hand to the sixth former whose name I still hadn't learned. Intrigued, I watched them for a while. On closer inspection I discovered that Malik was holding his hand out because the sixth former was trying to pierce his fingernail with a compass.

While I was watching, Bakura ran out of ideas. "Hey Marik!" The sixth former turned to face him. So Marik was his name. "Where would you suggest for a date?"

"A brothel." The answer was short, quick and certain; he was more interested in trying to pierce Malik's nail. Bakura looked at me with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

"What do you think?"

I looked back at him briefly before turning away again. "Of the brothel idea?"

"Yeah."

"It's rubbish."

"Oww!" He leaned his head on my shoulder. "You're so difficult to please!"

I didn't reply. I didn't intend to speak to him again at all, actually. The urge to ask him about his conversation with Yami was almost too big to resist.

"Hey!" He continued, his head jerking up. "Why don't we go roller blading? That's fun!"

I'd had it. If he suggested one more place, I was going to shoot someone. "Bakura, get it through your head: I don't want to go anywhere with you."

He tensed up, and obviously hadn't been expecting to hear that. "Why not? We're together, right? Couples go places together. That's what they do."

I was going into a rage. I was going to come clean any minute, I could feel it. "What are you, deaf? I said I don't want to go anywhere with you. Key words: 'don't want to'. How is that difficult to understand?"

"You're supposed to want to! You know what, fine. If you don't want to spend time with me that's your problem. Why the hell are we going out then?"

Both of us were quite loud by this point. "That's a question I could very easily ask you!"

His eyes widened so slightly that it was almost unnoticeable, and his voice dropped a few decibels. "What?"

I, on the other hand, had said too much to quieten down now. "You heard! Tell me; why the hell _are_ we going out? You don't even like me! You're only with me because you're going to get a bit of money out of it!"

Anger returned to him and displaced his shock; his voice regained its volume. "What the hell? Where've you got this from?"

"Don't play dumb! I heard you talking about it to Yami! Come on, admit it; you needed cash so you deceived me to get it! Was that it?" I didn't miss the amused glance Yami shot in our direction at the mention of his name. More importantly though, I stood in front of Bakura, glaring defiantly and daring him to contradict me.

He was stammering, seemingly unsure of what to say. Eventually he settled on, "Would you listen to yourself? Why don't you get your facts straight before you start throwing stupid accusations around?"

"Shut up! Both of you!"

I snapped my head round to look at Marik, who gave us a look that said 'please?' before turning his attention back to Malik's fingernail. It was bleeding all over the table, and the two of them were trying to find a way to make it stop and to clear up the blood without it looking suspicious. I winced; it looked sore. Bakura had to sigh before I looked at him again.

"Look, to be quite honest I'm not sure where you've got these ideas from. Wherever it was, you can get rid of them right now. I'm not using you to get money; surely, if I was, I wouldn't have stuck around for so long. Besides, I've got a part-time job. I don't _need_ to go out with you for money; I've got enough of my own already."

I began to feel a bit guilty. His voice had lowered to that tone adults tended to use when they were explaining the difference between right and wrong to a child. "But what about when you were talking to Yami the other day?"

I was grateful that, when he replied, he stopped speaking in the tone that made me feel bad and switched to a tone of confusion. "Whatever it was that you heard, you heard wrong. I don't get this anyway. _When_ was I talking to him? What was I saying?"

Looking at the floor, I tried to remember his exact words. It made me feel too bad to look at him. "You were saying that you had someone wrapped around your little finger, and that they didn't suspect anything…I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions."

A look of understanding crossed his face. "Oh, _that_? I wasn't talking about you, only this guy we know in our year. We've got a little bet going, see. It's nothing to do with you, so don't worry about it; just remember eavesdropping never got anybody anywhere."

I gave a small nod, but still refused to look at him. That had gone terribly. I supposed it was mostly my fault anyway; he was right, I shouldn't have been eavesdropping, and I did handle the whole situation rather badly. I should have just brought it up calmly and said it was bothering me and asked him to tell me the truth. Now I'd upset myself, and I'd upset and offended Bakura. I wouldn't have blamed him if he decided he wanted to leave me or something.

It was the biggest relief I'd felt for a long time when the bell rang for the end of lunch a few seconds later. I hurried to pick up my bag and wasted no time in getting out of the form room.

In my next lesson I sat with Yugi, but although he kept attempting to make conversation I wasn't putting much effort into my replies. I was wallowing in self pity a bit, to be honest. I couldn't believe I'd been so wrong about Bakura when I'd been so sure that I was right. Well, I'd been sure enough. It had all been there; all the evidence, like the suspicious conversations, and from that day in the park when he'd told me that he had no choice but to stick around. That could have easily been because he wanted the money he was going to get somehow, right?

Then again, it could just as easily have been what I thought it was in the first place: Yami asking Bakura to do the same thing that Yugi had made me do. And if the suspicious conversation I'd overheard wasn't about me, then what did I have to worry about? Absolutely nothing, that was what. All I'd done by getting nervous and making assumptions about it was made the whole thing worse. But wouldn't anyone else have done the same? I couldn't imagine anybody overhearing things like that and not suspecting anything. I was eventually pulled back into the real world by Yugi timidly patting me on the shoulder.

"Ryou? What's the matter? You're so quiet."

I smiled a little bit at his concern. "It's nothing, Yugi. Don't worry about it."

"You really expect me to believe that?" He sat back, folded his arms and pouted. "Even if it _is_ something really little and unimportant, it's obviously bothering you. Sometimes telling someone about it can help."

"No, really. I'm fine. See?" I replied grinning.

"Not good enough. Come on; get it out of your system."

I wasn't in the mood to put up the resistance that I normally would, so I relented and explained what was going on. I started by telling him about the conversation I'd overheard, although I left out the fact that it had been with Yami. I didn't want to worry Yugi about his own relationship, especially since Bakura had sworn my fears were ungrounded. I then told him about how I'd avoided Bakura all week, until that previous lunchtime when I'd unintentionally blurted out everything I'd heard and what I suspected he was up to.

"He told me I was wrong and that I didn't have anything to worry about. But…oh, I don't know. It feels weird, Yugi. Like it doesn't quite add up properly."

I looked at him. His expression was sceptical and thoroughly unconvinced. "If you want my opinion, I think you're just being stupid."

"You think?"

"Yep. I mean, people only use other people for money when they're really rich, like billionaire rich. Then they marry them, either wait until they die or kill them off, then they get all their money. You're not a billionaire. Or even a millionaire. You haven't got enough money for anyone to use you for."

I gave way to a slight grin. Yugi certainly had a harsh way of using words. "What if the money came from a bet, or something? Like if he was only going out with me to win a bet?"

He shook his head. "He's incapable of doing such a thing. Besides, if he was, I'd know about it from Yami. And I'm sure Yami would have something to say about it too."

I almost literally bit back the urge to tell him that Yami was the suspected third party. He didn't seem to notice, and carried on.

"Anyway, it wouldn't make any sense. You two have been going out for ages. Surely, if there was a bet, he'd have won by now, right? So it'd be stupid if he carried on going out with you after winning if he didn't like you. It'd be like...wasting his life, almost, on someone he didn't like when he could have been going out with someone he _did_ like."

It took me a few moments to think about it, and nod. What he was saying made at least a little bit of sense.

"And furthermore," he continued, "Bakura knows you've got friends who'd jump to your rescue if he ever attempted something like that. Malik would go berserk; he's always up for a punch-up, isn't he? If he found out Bakura was using you, he'd beat him until his arms fell off."

I sniggered. "Even then, he'd still kick him."

"Exactly!" Yugi grinned in triumph. He considered his point proven. "You really are just being pessimistic. Don't worry, it'll all work out."

"Thanks."

He smiled and turned back to his work. I knew he could be a stubborn and irritating little bastard when he wanted to be, but he was a good friend. I was glad he'd made the effort to make me feel better, because to an extent it had worked. Most of the time, he was a good judge of character. I tended to listen to him about people because he was usually right about them, even when he didn't really know them all that well. He knew Bakura far better than a lot of the people I'd trusted his opinions about, so I figured it was safe to trust him again.

My only concern was that, on the odd rare occasion, Yugi's naïveté got the better of him and he thought too highly of people who didn't deserve it. I just hoped that this time he was right, and that his affection of Yami wasn't clouding his judgement.

**Ho hum. Two more chapters, maybe? I wonder if I can finish before my exams start in two weeks time. Reviews help me.**


	17. The Countdown

**I'm bumping the rating up to an M for these last couple of chapters, just to be on the safe side. Hehe. I love making Ryou go from 0 to Angry in two seconds, it's great fun. Anyway, I won't give too much away. I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

I hadn't wanted to go in the first place; I hated parties. Well, they were alright I supposed when they weren't loud and there were only a few people there, all of whom I know well. But any other kind of party – Christmas parties included – were, more often than not, too loud, too crowded and far too focused on the consumption of as much alcohol as possible.

This Christmas party was no exception. Malik's house was full to the brim of already-drunk teenagers vomiting over every available surface and breaking every available breakable. Malik himself didn't seem to care; in fact, he was having a whale of a time. He hadn't yet drunk enough to make himself sick as he wanted to enjoy himself for as long as possible, but he was having tonnes of fun joining in with the rowdy kids who were throwing ornaments down the stairs.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure how he could bear to make such a mess of his own house. If it were anyone else's house, then sure, it wouldn't matter; he wouldn't be the one having to clear it all up the next day. I dreaded to think what he was going to do about all the vomit that would have dried onto his carpet by the morning. Even more unimaginable was how he was planning to explain the lack of breakables to his parents when they questioned him about it. Worse still, they could come home from their business trip early for whatever reason (heaven forbid) and see the state their precious house was in. Malik would almost certainly be shot.

I had grown weary of the atmosphere inside the house, and had stepped outside to get some air. It wasn't much better. Despite Malik's garden being pretty much empty, the smell and the noise had followed me. I was thankful that it was only the cigarette smoke I could smell, though; the stench of sick had been beginning to make me feel a bit ill myself. The heavy metal that was playing was just as loud outside as it had been inside. My ears were ringing ever so slightly and I knew that the next day I'd wake up with a headache. I pitied the few neighbours he had; it was quite surprising that none of them had popped round to complain yet.

It was terribly cold too, but that was all that could be expected for Christmas Eve. I should have been thankful that it wasn't snowing; the clouds had looked awfully suspicious all day and the weatherman had been telling us to expect at least a tiny bit of snow over Christmas. I considered going inside to grab my jacket, before thinking about how likely it was that someone had been sick all over it. Besides, I couldn't stay outside all evening. It was a tad cold for that, and if I wasn't going to be inside with everyone else I might as well just go home and enjoy my Christmas Eve in peace. Even if I wanted to stay outside, it would only be a matter of time before someone like Joey dragged me back inside, insisting that I joined in a bit more and stopped being so boring.

Something I was wondering about was the whereabouts of Bakura; I hadn't seen him arrive, and I hadn't come across him anywhere in the house. He had mentioned something a few days before about picking me up, but when he was a quarter of an hour late I though 'fuck him' and walked to this party by myself. Maybe he wasn't coming. The moment that thought entered my head I realised how ridiculous it sounded; he was the type who enjoyed a piss-up whenever he could. On numerous occasions he had told me about parties he'd been to the previous day where he'd drunk so much that he never wanted to drink again.

He was probably just late, I tried to convince myself; although, even if that was the case, being an hour late was pushing it a bit. Of course, he might have already turned up without me noticing. After all, it wasn't like I'd been standing by Malik's front door inspecting every single person who walked through it.

I needed to calm down, as I was getting a bit anxious. If I didn't get it under control I'd soon be bouncing off the walls, doing nothing but look frantically for Bakura. I wasn't that I desperately wanted to see him, it was that I really just had to. The days that had passed since that little misunderstanding happened had been strained and tense. We'd talked on the phone and stuff, but not face to face. That was what I had wanted to do at this party. Embarrassing as it was to admit, I couldn't stand the way things were between the two of us and I needed to get it sorted out. It wasn't something I could do on the phone, so I had just been hoping that I'd be able to get him alone for at least a few minutes. Just to talk things over.

But I'd never be able to do it if he didn't actually show up, or if I didn't try to calm down a bit. I took a deep breath, tasting the smoke and feeling the cold air burning my throat; the hurting was probably a sign that I should go back inside. I didn't really want to, but I didn't want to get ill either. Well, I reasoned, it wasn't much different out here – it still stank and it was still too loud. Inside it'd only be more crowded, and therefore warmer. And Bakura might have shown up in the time I'd been outside. It was this little glimmer of hope that motivated me enough to move back into the house.

The heavy, sticky atmosphere hit me as soon as I got through the door. The dancing people were doing was decidedly more terrible and there were many more pieces of broken china on the floor than when I'd left, indicating that these kids were far more drunk now than they had been before. It made me seek out a place in the house which was a little less crowded and a little less noisy and a little less bright. I had to watch where I was treading very carefully so as to avoid standing in vomit, which was difficult with people bouncing wildly in every direction; at one stage in my search some guy with a can of beer in his hand fell on me, looking as if he was about to bring the contents of his stomach up. I shoved him back the way he'd come before he did, and tried to get away as quickly as I could to avoid any further close calls like that.

It wasn't long before I was relieved to discover a pleasantly familiar face amongst the crowd. He didn't see me at first; this was because (I had to look and see what he was staring at that was so enticing) he was eyeing up some thin girl with huge breasts who had obviously had too much to drink and was jumping around all over the place. I, personally, couldn't see the attraction. I had to wave in front of his face and address him to make him realise I was there.

"Duke! You have no idea how glad I am to see you! What're you doing here?"

I had to shout to make him hear me, but it was worth it because his face seemed to light up when he saw me. Like me, he wasn't one for parties (which was why I was so puzzled about him being there) and he only drank in moderation. Well, I say he didn't like parties; he didn't like _this kind_ of party. Because of his position and his father's occupation, he was always off at some fancy, business to-do with formal dress and a sophisticated atmosphere. That was more his thing than the typical high school party.

"There you are! I've been looking for you! Where've you been?"

"I had to go outside and get some air. It's way too stuffy in here."

"You can say that again!" Duke took sip of wine from the glass he was holding, afterwards gesturing away from the room we were in. "Let's go somewhere quieter."

I nodded and he led the way through all the people until we got to the upstairs. The music was a little bit quieter, but the main difference was that there were considerably less people up there. I was grateful, for the people were making far more noise than the music.

"Ah!" He stretched his arms in the air with his back to me. "This is better, isn't it?"

I decided an answer to his question would not be necessary. We both knew what the answer would be. Instead, I asked him, "You never said what you were doing here. I didn't think this kind of do was your scene."

Almost seeming offended, he turned to face me. "You doubt me? I can't believe you'd think even for a second that I was here because I thought it'd be fun." He eyed me up and down and smirked. "Nice jeans."

I looked down. I had just picked up the first clothes I'd been able to find and worn them, but on closer inspection I saw that my jeans had blood on them. It showed up nicely on the light coloured denim. I sighed, remembering where it was from. "Blame Bakura, not me. He was the one who cut himself all over them." I paused, then asked, "Why _are_ you here, then?"

"I was looking for you, because," he took another sip of his drink, "I've been quite eager to meet this lover boy of yours. I want to see for myself if he's worth all the fuss you've been making of him."

I was ashamed to admit that it was true – I _had_ been making quite a fuss about Bakura. Duke had been the unfortunate recipient of many phone calls during which I talked about Bakura and how things between us were going.

"Well, he is. But why come here to find out? Why didn't you just ask me if you could meet him?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know, actually. I was going to, but then I heard about this party on the grapevine. It was meant to be a pretty big event, so obviously I didn't want to go at first. Then I found out that it was one of your friends hosting it. So I figured you and your boyfriend had to be here somewhere. Besides, I'd only have been sitting at home on my own watching films on TV if I didn't come, and no one wants to be doing that on Christmas Eve."

I watched as he finished his wine, and thought about what he'd said. It sounded about right. Malik, almost literally, knew everybody. And everybody he knew had been invited to this party. They'd all brought their friends from all over the place too, so I supposed it was considered a big event. It wasn't surprising that Duke had heard about it. I wouldn't have been surprised if there were a lot of people here that he'd already slept with.

"So," he threw his empty glass through an open door to save carrying it around, "where is this amazing man I've heard so much about?"

Folding my arms, I shook my head to tell him that I didn't know either. "I haven't seen him. He's supposed to be here."

"Then let's go look for him, shall we?" Duke strode past me and I followed him. I felt better about looking for Bakura now that I wasn't on my own. As we walked down the stairs Duke asked me, "What does he look like?"

"Well," I began, "he's about your height. His hair is long and desperately needs a wash, and he's got brown eyes."

The volume seemed to increase suddenly as we reached the bottom of the stairs, so once again we had to shout to hear each other.

"That guy?"

I followed Duke's gaze to see a guy who wasn't Bakura, but who definitely fitted the vague description I had supplied so far. His eyes were dark and his hair was long and straggly. I shook my head. "No. Bakura's hair is white, not brown. And his skin's not as pale as that guy's."

"Alright."

Being taller than me, it was Duke's job to look over people's heads in the larger crowds. I concentrated on the edges of the room and the people closest to me, as they were easier to see, hoping to get a glimpse of Bakura.

The first room we looked in was Malik's unbelievably huge kitchen. It was also one of the fuller rooms, as there were a lot of people wanting refills of drinks and raiding the fridge in search of food. It didn't take long for Duke and I to get separated, with he, satisfied that no one in the room was Bakura, about to leave and me struggling to get past a large group of people who were as spread out across the kitchen as they could possibly get. Duke turned back, prepared to wait for me, but I signalled for him to carry on without me. I was perfectly capable of catching up.

Although, by the time I did get out of the kitchen, Duke was nowhere to be seen. I picked my way around the dancing kids, looking for him instead of Bakura this time. He couldn't have gone far, could he? I got to the end of the hallway and my question was answered, as I saw my friend standing, staring into the living room. As I wondered what he was looking at he turned and saw me, and quickly beckoned me over. I didn't hesitate to comply; maybe he'd found Bakura. Even though the way he was staring wasn't suggesting that.

When I got close enough to hear him, he turned to me with an expression of irate disbelief and pointed into the room. "For the love of God, Ryou, please tell me that isn't him."

I braced myself, wondering what could be that bad, and looked in the direction he was pointing.

My mouth fell open. I blinked a couple of times. I had to shake my head and rub my eyes to make sure I was really seeing it. Unfortunately, I _was_ really seeing it.

Duke certainly had found Bakura. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the TV. He looked like he was off his face, and that assumption was supported by the amount of giggling he was doing and by the wine bottle he was waving about with his free hand. Now, I say his _free_ hand because his other hand was occupied – occupied by being up the skirt of some blonde chick. She was giggling a lot too.

I tried to speak, but I could only make shapes with my mouth. No sound was coming out. I noticed Duke look at me, expecting an answer, but I was too caught up with the scene in front of me to give him one. He didn't need one anyway. The one look at my face told him everything he wanted to know.

Bakura hadn't seen us. I watched as he leaned over to the girl he was with and said something into her ear. They both laughed, and it was disgusting. I didn't know what to do. Then she kissed him. He kissed her back, sloppily and eagerly. I had to leave then because I was feeling just as sick as all these drunken kids.

I didn't bother with politeness, or caring what I stood in; I shoved my way through the people, making them move, feeling my feet trying to slip out from under me. I had to get out of that house. Duke was shouting something, but I couldn't turn around or stop. The front door wasn't far away.

I got out and stood still for a moment, having to adjust to the sudden change in temperature. It was so cold, and this time I really couldn't go back and get my jacket. Malik would keep it for me. I could see my breath in front of my face and decided to get moving, because I needed to get away and I needed to keep warm somehow.

Walking away slowly from Malik's house, I started to wonder whether it would have been better if I hadn't run away. I didn't like to run away from things, but, when I'd seen _that_, it had been my first thought. It couldn't possibly be another misunderstanding. It was too much, and too obvious to be. Had I been right about Bakura before? If so, I was a fool for believing I had been wrong too easily. But it made no sense at all; hadn't Bakura told me that he was gay?

"Oi!"

I stopped walking. It was Bakura's voice shouting down the road at me, and he sounded angry. That was what sparked off my temper, I think. He had no reason at all to be angry.

When I heard him running towards me, I came to my senses a bit. I didn't want to talk to him then, that much I knew, so I started to run too. He was, however, faster than me, and eventually caught up and pulled me into an alley, out of view of any neighbours. He had me up against the wall, and I refused to look at him until he grabbed my face and forced me to.

Even though some light from a street lamp was lighting up the alley, it was very dark so I could only see half of Bakura's face properly. He was definitely mad. His teeth were clenched and he had blood pouring out of his nose. Just seeing his expression was making my temper rise more, and I knew that soon I'd be shouting.

"Who was _that_ fucker, huh?"

His voice was a low hiss, and I couldn't believe my ears. "You _what_?"

He replied calmly, even though he was still hissing. "I asked you who that fucker was."

I had to really try to restrain myself. "Maybe I should ask you the same thing."

"Don't get all fucking smart." His breath reeked of alcohol, and his grip on my face tightened. "I'll ask you one more time. Who was he?"

I wasn't afraid of him, especially not when I was as angry as I was. Although, I decided that I didn't like him when he had been drinking. "Who?"

"That bastard with black hair who just punched me in the fucking nose!"

Good old Duke. That must have been what he was shouting about before. "A friend of mine."

"Why the fuck did he do this, huh?" Bakura was screaming at me, and pointing at his nose. It was bleeding quite a lot, actually. Duke must've really given him a piece of his mind.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it was because of what _you_ were doing!" My voice began to rise in volume. "Who the hell was she? That slut you were feeling up whose tongue was down your throat? Go on, talk yourself out of this one. We're supposed to be going out, in case you'd forgotten!"

He laughed quietly, let go of me and stepped backwards, giving me some more space. I folded my arms and waited for an explanation, even though I was absolutely certain that he wouldn't be able to give me one adequate enough.

"I'm not going to get out of this, am I?" He seemed to be talking to the floor instead of me. I was about to supply him with an answer when he looked up and continued. "Alright then. I confess. I lied when I said I was gay, and I didn't really want to go out with you. I had a bet with Yami, because he said that I wouldn't be able to get you to go out with me and stay with me until the New Year. I get £20 when I win."

I was a bit too taken aback to speak. I hadn't expected him to confess anything quite so easily. Maybe it was because he had the alcohol in his system, and it was making him more inclined to tell the truth? I didn't know. I knew one thing though, and when I got my voice back I told him what it was. "You won't be winning."

His expression said more than his mouth did. I really had only been a pawn to him, hadn't I? He was treating all of this, excluding his bleeding nose, as a bit of fun. It was sickening. He began to grovel in a half-arsed way. "Oh, come on. You only have to play along for another week or so. Just pretend you didn't know. Then I'll still win."

"Excuse me?"

"Yami doesn't have to know about any of this. It can be our secret. As long as he doesn't know, it's all ok."

What was I supposed to think? "You're not getting this, are you? Do you even understand what you've done?"

He laughed again, this time in a low, slightly unnerving way. "I didn't want to do this, but now I don't have any choice." Once again I found myself pressed against the wall. "Either play along, or I kill you. It's your choice."

At first, I didn't believe him. Who would, after all? Killing someone was a bit extreme just because they wouldn't do what you wanted them to do. "You'll kill me? Over a measly £20?"

He pretended to think, and then replied, "Yep."

I still opted not to believe him until I remembered that he had thought it perfectly acceptable to toy with my feelings for a measly £20.

I stared up at him. Was he crazy? "Hang on. So everything you've told me up until now has been a lie?"

"Yeah."

"I suppose that story you told me in our detention was made up too, right? About that guy you liked who rejected you?"

He nodded.

"What about a few weeks ago, when you stayed over and were all 'I'm worried because we haven't got long to see each other'? What was that all about?"

"That was my short-lived, guilty effort to make the truth a little bit easier to cope with when you found out. But you were the one who didn't want to listen, so you deserve everything you get. Sorry."

"Don't fucking apologise." I tried to barge past him, but he wouldn't let me go. He brought his face as close to mine as he could without touching it, and the stench of the drink on his heavy breath was nauseating.

"What's the matter with you, eh? Last time I checked, you hated me. You told me all the fucking time. Shouldn't you be relieved that I'm telling you all this? I figured you'd be over the fucking moon. You don't have to admit any more embarrassing 'truths' about us. Why aren't you happy now?"

I didn't reply. I couldn't while he was so close to me.

"Unless," he continued, his voice getting lower still, "I'm wrong. Tell me, am I wrong? Do you like me more than you're letting on?" He paused, but didn't give me time to reply, and smirked.

"Do you think of me when you wake up in the morning? You ought to; we're going out, after all. I bet I'm the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about at night. There's not a day goes by where you don't sit there dreaming about me, is there? I know you so well."

"We are not going out."

Ignoring me, he carried on. "Do you fantasise about us? Please, I'm awfully curious. Do you imagine what it'd be like, the things we'd do together? It'd be so pleasurable, you and me. Think about it; just the two of us, in bed. I'd fuck you so hard you wouldn't be able to walk for a month. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" He began to laugh as he spoke. "Of course you would. You'd jump at the chance to feel me inside you, because that's what you want. You want me. You _need_ me, don't you? You'll never be able to stop needing me." He grabbed my hand and, still laughing, stroked it over his chest before I snatched it away.

"You _cunt_." I spat the words out, raising my fist with every intention of following Duke's example. I was surprised when he reacted quickly enough to catch my arm and stop me hitting him.

"Come, come, that won't do. I haven't had quite enough to drink to let more than one person punch me." He guided my hand back down to my side. "Now, you have a simple yes or no question in front of you: are you going to help me win this money, or are you not?"

"Fuck you."

"Fine. Have it your fucking way." He grinned at me. There was something that was really beginning to make me nervous in the way he was looking at me, in the same way that an antelope would feel nervous if a lion was looking at it. After a few moments of him making me nervous, he leaned down to kiss me. I turned my head quickly so that he didn't touch my lips, but he still got my cheek and it made me shudder. It was then that he let go of me and began to back away, smiling.

"I did enjoy our time together, Ryou. Really. It was good fun. We should do it again one day. But right now I'm afraid I really must be going."

Bakura then turned and started to walk towards the alley exit, leaving me standing in exactly the same place wondering what the hell had just happened. I glanced at him, and decided that for once I wouldn't think about it and I'd just let my impulses take over. All I knew was that I couldn't just let him walk away; something had to be done.

…

**Come on, we all know that Bakura's really a horrible, sadistic maniac. It was bound to happen sooner or later.**

**Last chapter's already written. It'll be posted when I can't bear to keep it from you all any more xD**


	18. Entwined Forever

**The moment you've all been waiting for (hah). I don't own Yugioh.**

SMILE

I was surprised at my own strength. I ran towards his retreating figure and kicked him in the back of the knee. It was clearly something he hadn't expected, as he yelled out and fell to the floor when his leg immediately gave way. He lay there on the floor of the alley, more than a little bewildered, looking up at me while I stood over him smirking. He started to speak, the heated look passing over his features, but I wasn't having any of it; I kicked him in the mouth. He cried out again, only this time much louder and considerably higher pitched, and his hands flew to his face in an effort to defend himself. I saw the blood seeping through the gaps in his fingers and it added fuel to my fire. I kicked him again and again, wherever I saw fit to do so – his stomach suffered multiple times, as did his head, face and crotch. I was so angry. His audible pain was falling on my deaf ears. I cared not about my boots becoming a bit bloody; they could always be wiped down. But by the time I was done with Bakura, he would be beyond cleaning up.

I eventually relented my kicking and stood, panting, looking over him. He was huddled into as tight a ball as he could manage, one hand trying to cover his face and the other wrapped around his stomach. I almost wished I felt sorry for him for a second, but then the moment passed and I got my breath back. I kicked him so he was lying on his back, and knelt with my knees on either side of him. He opened his eyes. I was glad for his slight tipsiness, as it gave me an advantage that I normally wouldn't have; his reactions were too sluggish for him to fight back decently. I think he knew what was coming, and lucky for him; his hand got to his face a split second before my fist did. Of course, he still felt some of the impact. It was just that his hand blocked some of it, and that just made me angrier. I wanted him to suffer, and suffer was what he would bloody well do. I gritted my teeth, and with my left hand I grasped his collar, yanking it towards me so he was more or less upright. It distracted him from protecting his face; so while he was struggling to free his collar my right hand swung towards him and hit him full force in the cheek with a shockingly loud slapping sound. The 'happy slap' craze had taught me that slapping could cause things like blindness, and deafness.

Of course his face turned away from me, and after a pause he let out a laboured cough. His hands stopped their struggling for a moment, as he attempted to regain at least a little of his composure, and he moved as if he was going to look at me. Before he had the chance, my hand swung back, this time in a fist, and I hit his jaw with a sickening crunch. This time I couldn't find it in me to give him time to cough or get his breath back; I hit him harder than I had before. I hit him again and again, blow after blow. I noticed that after a while he started to dig his nails into my left hand, and eventually I stopped and my right arm dropped to my side. His eyes were shut, and his teeth were clenched. He made a huge effort to face me, and when he had managed that, he opened his eyes. They were filled with anger. A very misplaced and unjustified anger, I felt. I pulled my arm back, preparing this time to hit him square in the face instead of from the side, when he spat at me. A horrible, bloody, sticky mess, half in my eye and half over my nose. Needless to say, as I slowly wiped the stuff off my face, I felt insulted, and I even felt a tad surprised. He was in a position unsuitable for degrading me in such a way, so why had he done it?

Even if he had had the chance to give me a reason, I wouldn't have accepted it. I think he knew that. It simply went to prove the stupidity I had seen in him from the beginning. I punched him in the nose, and was vaguely disappointed when I didn't hear a single sound of pain or protest despite the noticeable increase in the amount of blood running down his face. He had blood all over his gritted teeth, and it kept dripping into his mouth. He must have been able to taste it. I grinned somewhat sadistically before hitting him in the bottom of the chin, forcing him to swallow. It was satisfying to see him beginning to look a bit nauseous; it was clear that he was past fighting back or defending himself very well. I let go of his collar and shoved him back, enjoying the sound of his head hitting the floor. I stood up and kicked him in the side before rummaging around in my pockets, remembering what I had put in to one of them last time I had worn those jeans.

"You know, Bakura…you didn't think your plans through very well. You should have known I would do something like this. Seeing as you know me so well and all."

I fished the small, sharpened penknife out of my pocket and squatted beside him, dangling it in front of his face. "You can see this, can't you? Do you know what I'm going to do with it?" He looked at me with a vaguely confused expression.

"I'm going to make you hurt. Scum like you shouldn't have it so easy."

With that I tightened my grip on the knife and plunged it into his upper arm as deep as I could. He, as I had expected, screamed out and his immediate reaction was to try and pull his arm away. I grinned, and held the blade exactly where it was for the next few moments before twisting it slightly and pulling it back out. His hand leapt to the rescue of his arm, folding his sleeve over the wound as many times as he could in an attempt to absorb the gargantuan amount of blood. He had stopped screaming by this time but his breathing was heavy and quick. I dropped to my knees and held the blade of my bloody knife tightly against his throat.

Unable to contain my anger, I found myself shouting. "I knew there was a reason why I hated you! I was a fool to think I'd been wrong about you! You and that stupid fucking smirk of yours!" I grabbed his collar again with my free hand. "Why'd you do it? What's the matter with you?" I shook him with rage. "Answer me!"

At first he didn't answer. He just lay there trying to get his breath back, obviously still in pain. I could feel my anger rising all the while; I knew it wasn't good for me to lose my temper in a situation such as this, but he just seemed to bring that out in me. As I waited for a reply, I remembered times before – before I even knew him he annoyed me. He had caused me months of grief and uncertainty. And I wasn't about to forget the humiliating incident when he took me out of school that tragic day. He had made me mad then, too.

Eventually he tried to talk, and he stared me right in the eyes. "I'll do anything for money."

It was exactly the kind of answer I should have been expecting, but his rudeness took me by surprise. In response, I cut along his jaw and he hissed.

"You're…you're fucking insane…"

I was a little taken aback at this display of audacity. Clearly he didn't understand that he had been in the wrong, and clearly he didn't think that I would do anything beyond repair to him. If he knew my intentions, I doubt that he would have been quite so blunt or offensive. I had to hand it to him, though; he wasn't afraid, even while he was lying bloody and bruised with a knife to his throat, completely at my mercy. Oh well. Bold as his reply was, it hadn't been in his best interests to say.

On the bright side, it had made me the good kind of angry. The kind of angry where you're calm and have complete control over your actions.

Either way, Bakura didn't realise the enormity of his mistake until I sliced his cheek. It had to be done, and I don't think he was expecting me to cut his face. At first he didn't seem to register it, then as he began to bleed he screamed out.

Little to nothing could have pleased me more than that sight – a scummy sixth former lying on the ground in an alley, bloody and bruised and screaming with pain. In fact, it pleased me so much that I cut him again, this time across his chin. If only he still had the first bruise I ever gave him. The two would have gone well together.

I cut the side of his wrist next. That bled a lot, but not enough. So I pulled his shirt up, exposing his stomach. It was pretty clean as far as blood and wounds were concerned, and I couldn't allow that. The first cut went under his belly button, and yet again he screamed and tried to curl up. I sat on his legs so he couldn't. The second cut was a long one, all the way down his side, and then I noticed some of his ribs were showing. So I cut them too. It looked like I'd drawn across his ribs in red pen. Or like spare ribs.

By this point he was bleeding quite profusely. Like he was lying in a puddle. I thought it was pretty funny because all the red clashed with the off-white colour of his hair. And he was going pretty pale, which was a good sign. I stood up and sighed, looking down at my jeans. They were covered in even more red splatters and stains than before. So was my shirt, but not quite as badly. When I got home after this, the first thing I'd do was go shove my clothes in the washing machine. I actually could not stand wearing clothes that dirty. I supposed, though, that this event was an exception. It wasn't really like I could help getting blood everywhere, was it? Besides, it was Bakura's fault for having so much of it.

He had curled back up again on his side, his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach. Probably an effort of some sort to stop the bleeding. Bit late for that, I thought. I stood up and kicked him in the back.

"I'm not sure if you've realised it yet…" I began, wiping my knife on my jeans, "but you've fucked with the wrong person. Did you honestly think I'd just sit back like a good little idiot and let you get away with it?"

He didn't move, and he didn't look at me. When he answered, it was obvious that it took a lot of effort on his part. "You're not normal. People don't kill people when they get fucked over! If you thought I was serious about killing you, you're a moron."

"Really, Bakura, you should have known me better than that. I mean, why should you have all the fun? You've had a laugh at my expense, and now it's my turn to have a laugh at yours. And what could be more amusing than a worthless bastard bleeding on the floor?"

"You sick fuck!"

I kicked him again, and it certainly shut him up apart from the coughing. How dare he speak to me like that! Like I was some kind of psycho. Anyone would think he didn't deserve it.

Looking down at him, for a moment I felt like a bystander. He was just lying there, bleeding, and I was watching and doing absolutely nothing about it. Except that I wasn't a bystander. I was the one inflicting the suffering, I was the one in control. Bakura was completely at my mercy, and it was wonderful.

However, in my moment of feeling like I was sitting on the fence, I realised that maybe it was time to stop. I had had fun. It had been a great experience, inflicting pain on the person in the world who most deserved it. But that was exactly what I had done – inflicted pain. If I cut him up anymore I would be crossing an unspoken boundary and would risk killing him. Murder hadn't been on the agenda, and I had no intention of adding it.

The only thing making me hesitate was how much he had had it coming. No one else was going to teach him not to treat people like objects. This was my one opportunity to be satisfied, and to go home in the knowledge that I had fixed an imbalance of justice. If I stopped now, it'd be nagging away in the back of my head for the rest of my life. That I let him get away with it. I just didn't think I had it in me to do that.

It was a difficult decision I had to make. Fortunately, Bakura made the decision for me without even realising.

"Fuck you," he spat, glaring at me and struggling to get onto his knees. "I always thought you had something wrong in the head. It's only a matter of time before the white coats cart you off to the loony bin, isn't it?"

He managed to get himself onto his feet and he stood, slightly hunched over, looking right at me. It was a disturbing sight; not because of the blood, but because I could see my own anger reflected in him. Mostly anger, anyway. His eyes were wide and crazy, laughing even more than mine were. "Tell me, Ryou, _sweetheart._" He was almost snarling. "How did _they_ end up snuffing it, eh? Your mother and your sister? Did you kill _them_ too?"

It seemed proof that I must have been doing God's will, so I wasted no more time in punching him in the face. He was unsteady on his feet already due to the slices in his stomach and the alcohol in his system, so he didn't put up much resistance. It was just as well, really. My hand was killing me; I felt like I'd broken my knuckles. I hit him again, and again and again, until he was on the ground once more. I wouldn't allow him to talk about my family like that.

By the look of him now, I didn't think he would. The first time he had fallen he had been curling up, rolling around, struggling to put distance between the two of us. As I had continued my onslaught relentlessly, he had continued to resist it. This time it was different. He seemed worn out from the fighting and struggling, and was lying on his front coughing up blood. There was no attempt to get back up, no effort to defend himself. I didn't think he cared much about it, to be honest. I doubted it was the first time he'd been in a fight, and I was certain it wouldn't be the last. At least, it wouldn't be if he recovered.

Much to my surprise, however, he kept talking. Well, more like wheezing. "Is this what you do when you don't have anything clever left to say? Use brutality until the third party has shut up?"

He coughed again, spluttering violently. His hands were noticeably shaking, and even though I couldn't see his face I was sure he was still wearing that same, defiant expression. "Unfortunately, Ryou," he continued, "I won't just shut up. You cannot get rid of me just like that. I'm like an itch that won't go away."

I stepped closer and crouched down beside him. "You were always like an itch. You're an itch in the middle of my back. But you can get rid of any itch, whatever the means to do it has to be." I sighed and, noticing white on my hand, looked up at the sky. Was it snowing?

He looked at me, his face covered in red and a crazy grin marring his features. "Not me. I never go away. You and I are the same, don't you see?"

"I'm not like you." My answer was quick and definite. I wasn't like Bakura in any way, shape or form.

"But you are. You need me. And that's why you'll never escape me."

I stood up and kicked him in the head with all the strength I could muster. He, after visibly trying to hang on, went limp, finally unable to remain conscious. I was glad. That conversation had been beginning to make me feel a bit ill; both physically ill and ill in the uneasy way. Looking at him made me angry, and talking to him made me scream. He was the most twisted person I'd ever met and right then there was nothing I wanted more than to never see him again. He and I could never be alike.

It was definitely snowing now. Rather fitting considering the deed I'd just done, I thought. The tiny flecks of white were making the scene appear strangely pretty; they rested on Bakura's unmoving face, and either settled around him or disappeared into the red pool he was lying in. Of course, there was far less snow falling in this alley. Out in the street I could see the flakes scattering far more liberally, settling across the path and layering up to form a thin, white blanket.

Sighing, I folded the knife back up and slipped it into my pocket. When he was unconscious, Bakura didn't look nearly as messed up in the head as he actually was. I found myself with an urge to move his hair out of his face, but I didn't do it right away. I didn't want to touch him in any way at all that wasn't going to draw blood, and I really needed to get a hold of myself. Or else I'd end up rampaging, mowing down anyone who so much as looked at me.

I looked up at the sky, far too numb from the cold now to feel the snowflakes falling on to the excessive amount of skin I was baring. It wasn't too bad; by that point I was beyond caring about the temperature anyway. There were more important things on my mind.

Why hadn't I killed him? Sure, he was only hanging on by the skin of his teeth and he probably wouldn't last much longer if I just left him there, but…

A snowflake fell into my eye, causing me to blink and shake my head in surprise. That was what I didn't like about snow; it got into the most unsuitable places. I held my hand out, hoping to catch some of the small flakes. It hadn't snowed for quite some years, so I thought it was reasonable to enjoy it, for old time's sake. It took me a while to notice just how much blood I had on me, belonging to both Bakura and myself. My hands were covered in it. It was untidily splattered over my clothes too, and up my arms. It wouldn't have surprised me if I returned home to find that my face was also a mess, or that my hair was knotted and matted. There was no doubt about the fact that one of my top priorities was now having a long, relaxing, hot shower.

The snowflakes were melting too quickly into the blood on my hand, so I soon gave up trying to catch them. Instead I took a deep breath, and looked at Bakura. He was very pretty; as wrong as it made me feel to catch myself thinking that, there was no way I could deny it. Although, if I ever saw him again after today, I'd have to mention that red was definitely not his colour.

I knelt beside him and only hesitated a little before I brushed his stray hair away from his face and tucked it behind his ear.

"What happened to not feeling pain, eh?"

I didn't know why I said it. I guessed that the knowledge that he wasn't going to reply acted as a confirmation for what I'd just done. It was a point, anyway. He'd told me before that he didn't feel pain easily, yet he'd cried out the first time I kicked him. Obviously, that had all been lies aswell.

I wouldn't stay much longer; I'd done what I'd needed to do, and if anyone found us I knew I'd be in trouble. As I stared at him, I remembered the past few months. I remembered hating him. He had been the very epitome of everything I despised, and to this day he still was. What on earth had I seen in him that had made me change my mind? It wasn't his winning personality, that was for sure, and I'd never thought myself shallow enough to change my opinion about someone because of their looks.

Feeling my knees crack as I stood back up, I was hit by a wave of satisfaction. Whether it was because I had found out the truth or because I had made Bakura pay for it, I didn't know. Just looking at him lying there, from his head to his feet covered in cuts and blood…I guessed it could have been described as a rush of adrenaline. It was a frightening and horribly pleasing sight, and it was difficult to look away. If the need to get away wasn't quite so pressing, I could easily have stood and stared at him until he woke up. If, and when, that happened. Unfortunately, the need to get out of the alley and go home was far too pressing to ignore, so I tore my eyes away from the view, finding it surprisingly easy not to look back.

And so I walked away, elated with a strange sense of liberation and an easy smile on my face.

**Ta da.**

**I hope I still have at least _a few_ readers left who don't hate me. This fic was never going to have a happy ending from the moment I chose the title. I'd really appreciate reviews, and this time I'm particularly after constructive criticism. I'd like to know what could be better (apart from the fact that the ending is unhappy) so I can write better in future. **

**So, as I depart I leave you all with one more question: should I write a short epilogue to wrap this all up? Or is it good enough without one?**

**Thank you to everyone who read this (especially if you reviewed too).**


End file.
